A Beautiful Mind
by the7joker7
Summary: Ken has a beautiful mind. But as his promising career in mathematics plays out, we find even a rose has it's thorns. Can he be saved from himself?
1. Chapter 1

A Beautiful Mind

Ken has a beautiful mind. But as his promising career in mathematics plays out, we find even a rose has it's thorns. Can he be saved from himself?

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A Beautiful Mind is a drama based off the life of John Forbes Nash, and was converted into a book and movie. This fanfiction is heavily based on the movie. Meaning you could read this fic or watch the movie and basically draw the same thing from either. So if you're looking for something 'original' don't look here. I don't own any of those things, so credit to them.

And yes, I realize this fic is slightly historically innaccurate.

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Chapter 1: Princeton

Princeton University

2010

"Math is life." So claimed the man at the head of the room, addressing those within it. "Mathematicians win wars. They advance technology. They create new medicines. Math is the basis of all there is in life, everything comes back to math. And mathematicians, like all of you-" he pointed his finger out at his audience of a few dozen, waving it around to indicate he meant everyone, "are going to be the purveyors of humanity for the next generation."

Many of the young men in the room sat close to the speaker, listening intently, hanging onto his every word as they smoked their cigarettes. They knew they were brilliant, every last one of them. But hearing it from the mouths' of other people never got old.

But one was not so captivated. Ken sat in the back of the room in an isolated chair. He seemed downright uninterested, as a matter of fact. Even though he wore a rather professional looking suit, his mannerisms suggested he didn't belong here. He was looking down slightly at the back of the chair in front of him, rubbing his hands together in his lap.

"Now, as I look around you, the latest entrants into Princeton, I wonder. Do we have the next Morse or Einstein, in this room right now? Who among you will bring publishable results? Who will be the defender of all that is right in this world?" The elderly man continued, sweeping his hands about him to emphasize his point.

One of the students turned and looked back at Ken, who rolled his eyeballs around to glance at him before resuming his starring contest with the back of the chair.

"As of today, consider the fate of the world in your hands. Every last one of you. Welcome to Princeton, gentlemen."

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It was a beautiful day. As such, the festivities that accompanied this glorious day took place outside. Ken picked up one of the crystal punch glasses on one of the many tables set across the lawn of Princeton's campus. He rotated it slowly in his hand, watching the light refract through it and onto the table...then the ground...then himself.

"You should hear Hansen go on about it. It's not enough that he wins the Carnegie Prize...he just has to have it all to himself." He heard a voice carry over from someone else.

"First time it's been split." Another voice. The two men who were having the discussion approached the table by Ken. "Quite irregular."

Ken glanced up from the glass. Two of his peers, new students in Princeton. He finally took the time to look about him and actually take in what he saw. Everyone else was mingling among each other, talking, discussing...and here he was, playing with a simple prism. He reflected the light onto the chest of one of the two men who had just walked up to the table, aligning the formation of light onto his tie.

What a terrible tie. Ken was no expert on fashion, or ties, but even he knew that a yellow tie with brown crescents randomly across it was indeed an ugly tie.

"I wonder..." The two stopped talking and turned to Ken. "Is there a mathematical explanation for how bad your tie is?"

The two considered him. "I highly doubt it." One of them put his hand forth at Ken. "I'm Sol, this is Bender." Ken didn't offer his hand back, so the end result was an awkward withdrawal. "We're codebreakers. Helped rid the world of facism during the war."

"Or at least that's what we tell the ladies." Bender added. "And you are?"

"Ken Ichijouji. Japan." He said simply, looking back down at the glass.

"Ah yes. I've heard of you." Sol slowly nodded.

Another man joined the trio by the table. He pointed at Ken. "Yes, thank you." He turned to the two others as Ken just stood there, still overlooking the glass.

"Erm, Hansen." Bender began. He motioned his head towards Ken, who hadn't reacted at all to what Hansen had just said.

"Oh. My apologies, I thought you were the waiter." He said as if it was nothing, getting his own glass of punch off the table. "Hansen." He offered his hand to Ken, but once again, Ken remained quite focused on the glass.

"It's fine, Martin. It is Martin, isn't it?" He barely looked up to see Hansen nod. "I imagine you're getting quite used to miscalcuation." Sol and Bender, who had been beginning to start talking to each other again, suddenly became intensely interested in Ken. Hansen's smile faltered. Ken finally looked up at Hansen entirely, putting the glass down. "I've read your...your publications." He began scratching his forehead. "The ones on Nazi Scientists from World War II...and um...Non-linear equations. I'm extremely confident there's not a single innovative or interesting idea in either one of them." He nodded. "Enjoy your punch." He turned and slowly walked away.

"Who is that?" Sol asked.

"The _other_ winner of the Carnegie Prize...mysterious prodigy from Japan." Bender explained as Ken retreated towars the dormitories.

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The first order of business, once Ken arrived up in his dormitory, was pushing the desk up against the lone window of the room. No sense in staring at some wall while working, no matter what the 'experts' might tell you. He had a nice view of the campus from up here. He found it...stimulating, not distracting.

"First day, and you're already dead set on breaking the norm." Ken turned to face the door threshold, which had just been passed through by a unfamiliar person. "I like that. I like you."

"And you are?" He asked as he positioned the pencil cup and notepad on the desk.

"The prodigal roommate. Charles Herman at your service." Ken looked him over. Wiry, tall, blond hair...there had been worse roommates.

"Ken Ichijouji." He said quietly, pulling his partner from one of his bags.

"Ah. Cute. I see." Charles nodded at Wormmon assertively. "I guess we can make room for a third."

Ken sat down at the desk and peered down on the campus. He began drawing on the windows with a white marker, apperantly relative to the game of touch football that was going on below.

"I believe I've heard of you...Japan, isn't it? I'm from Scotland myself. Writer, here to learn. Well, at least partially. You're math?" He looked down at Ken, who had become intensely interested in writing on the windows, apperantly completely forgetting Charles was even there.

"Yes, well, I got in last night. Just in time for a nice cocktail. My cock, tail belonged to a lovely young..." He looked down at Ken, who was either completely blocking him out, or didn't care much for what he had to say. "You're not one to be easily distracted, are you?"

"I'm here to learn." He said quietly, not taking his eyes or focus off whatever it was he was writing.

Charles glanced down at the desk and spotted a tin box of cookies to Ken's right. He walked over to it and tried to grab one, but Ken flicked the lid on it shut as his hand closed in on it.

Charles looked down at his mat of blue hair, increasingly frustrated with his refusal to interact. He grabbed the back of the chair and spun it around 180 degrees, then bent down so he was looking right at Ken. "Is my roommate a dick?"

Ken seemed strangely nonplussed by the aggressive move, his glance dancing between the wall across the room and Charles.

Charles almost laughed. "Alright. Alright." He pulled out a small flask. "You just need a little help. What do you say?"

Ken considered the flask. Well, it couldn't hurt.

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The unlikely couple went up onto the roof and began alternating swigs. Ken hadn't had alot of experience with alcohol, so before long he was about as open socially as you could hope. Which wasn't particularly far, but it was something.

"So, Ken...who are you, anyway? The poor kid who never got into Andover, doesn't take anything for granted?"

"No. Nothing like that. I have a chip on both shoulders. I have something to prove to myself and the world, and I'm better with numbers than people."

"I see. What might that be?"

Ken took another gulp from the flask. "I'm haunted by my past. I need to see my brilliance applied in a way that helps mankind."

"I see. Hardly any reason to be so...so..."

"I was worse once. I had a teacher in high school. She said I was born with two helpings of a brain, but only half a helping of heart."

Charles snorted at that one. "She sounds lovely."

"Correct though. I'm not completely alone...there's my partner down in the room, and I've got a few people you might call friends...but in the end, I don't much like people. And they don't much like me." He looked off into the distance and nodded.

"Well look, you're never going to find some greater purpose or some reason to live through math."

"And why is that?" He handed the flask back.

"Because it's boring. Really boring."

Ken snickered. In his tipsy state he found such a statement funny. "You know...these students here...most of them already have published works? Terrifying." He walked over to the edge of the roof, looking down on students walking about on campus. "Wasting their time...I won't be one of them, Charles. Sitting through classes, reading books, memorizing assumptions of LESSER MORTALS!" The last two words echoed about the buildings, causing quite a few to look up at Ken.

"No." Ken came back from the edge to look at Charles. "I'm going to find something truly...innovative. Original. Something. I won't be simple white noise, I'll do something that'll really distinguish myself, make me really-"

"Matter?"

Ken nodded.

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Months passed, and Ken stayed through to his word. He spent countless hours searching for something 'original' to write about, no matter how unorthodox it appeared to be. Or how odd he himself looked in the process. Today in particular he looked very odd, watching a grouping of pidgeons fighting over a field of bread crumbs. He was carefully documenting their movements on a notepad.

He caught snatches of a conversation from a nearby bench.

"Come on, one more!" Hansen.

Sol replied. "No, I...I hate this game."

"Bender, come on!"

"No, I've had plenty of Go for one day." He pushed himself up off the bench, away from the grid bearing several dozen black and white marbles.

"Oh come on, Bender. Whoever wins, Sol does his laundry for a month."

"Well, that seems just a little-" Ken didn't look, but it made sense that the group had just spotted him, watching the birds as if it was a very interesting movie, taking careful notes. Even he knew he must look quite odd.

"Ken, what are you doing?" Bender inquired.

"Oh, I'm just hoping to...come up with an algorithm to define their movement." He explained as if he was describing the weather, not taking his focus away.

He was quite sure he heard something that sounded like 'Psycho' come from Sol, but was perfectly content to ignore it.

"Ken, I thought you dropped out, I haven't seen you go to a single class-" Hansen began.

"Classes." He finally looked over at the group. "Classes dull the mind. I want authentic creativity, and I can't get that from classes." He resumed looking at the pidgeons as they pecked about.

"Oh...I see. Didn't know that." Bender said sarcastically.

"Yes, Ken. You'll stun us all with this great idea of yours." Hansen chuckled. "Come on." He pointed down at the grid board. "What say you."

Ken ignored him completely, keeping focused on the birds.

"Scared, Ichijouji?"

"Terrified. Mortified. Petrified. Stupified. By you." Ken looked up at Hansen finally, walking slowly towards him. "Very well."

And the game began. For some time, the two went back and forth in placing and removing the marbles on the board in silence, as the game slowly neared it's end. But Hansen couldn't resist side comments at the end.

"You know, Ken-"

"I probably do, but go ahead."

"Bender and Sol completed Allen's proof of Peyrot's conjecture."

Ken placed another of the playing pieces onto the board. "Good for him. But not at all innovative, I'm afraid."

"I myself..." he placed another piece, "have two weapons briefs under review by the D.O.D."

Ken parryed him with another marble. "Drivel. Worthless." He muttered.

"So, Ken, I'm wondering. Your list of achievements currently stands at precisely zero. You have nothing."

"Is this a statement, or a question?" He asked casually as he overlooked the playing field.

"This original idea...what if it doesn't come up? I mean, think about it now. How will it feel if I'm chosen for Wheeler, and you're not?" He placed another marble. The game was almost over.

Ken just smiled at his opponent and placed another piece.

"What if you...lose?" He timed this statement with a placing of a final marble. The clincher. The crowd around the board oohed and ahhed as the winning move was placed down. "There we go." He heard Sol mutter.

Ken looked down on the board, his face inbetween confusion and denial. "You...that should not have happened."

"What?"

"You shouldn't have won. My play was perfect, I had the first move..."

"Oh, come now, Ken. Don't feel too-"

"The game is flawed." He said dismissively as he got up. He grabbed his notebook and began walking away, accidentally knocking the board over as he kicked his leg over the bench.

"Gentlemen, the great Ken Ichijouji." He heard Hansen call out mockingly as he retreated.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: And the group

Many more weeks passed, and Ken could not get Hansen's taunts out of his head. Normally he could care less about such things...but things were not going well.

"Ken...it's been two days. And I really don't think the, the janitor will much appriciate you writing on the windows in the library." Charles was trying to convince Ken, who was sitting on the windowsill in the library, peering at the drawings on the windowpanes. As far as anyone could tell, he had been awake for the last 48 hours, drawing on either the windows or his notepad.

"Well, I still don't have a topic for my doctorate, so two days simply isn't enough I suppose." He turned to face Charles. "You hear Hansen's published a new paper?"

"What is all this anyway, is this even math?" Charles went up to the window, scratching his head.

Ken pointed up at the sections of the window. "This...this first one here, is a group of students playing a game of football." He pointed at the one in the middle. "Pidgeon's fighting over bread. And the last one over there is a woman chasing a man who stole her purse."

"What?"

"The first one is a group of-"

"No, no Ken! Ken, you watching a mugging. That's weird. Almost as weird as trying to draw some...algorithm out of it."

Ken gave a small smile. "No, Charles. You don't understand. In competitive behavior...someone always loses. In touch football, one of the teams lost by two touchdowns...around half of the pidgeons didn't get very much bread...the woman couldn't catch the man and lost her purse."

Charles couldn't help but laugh. "Ken, everyone knows that. I have a six year old niece who knows that."

"Charles, I'm trying to come up with an equilibrium where nobody loses. Think about it, Charles. Think of the effect that would have on the world. Arms negotiations, currency exchange, think about it, Charles."

"Ken...food?"

"What?"

"When did you last eat?" He walked up to him. "When, Ken?"

"Not sure. You really should have more respect for this, what I'm thinking of could...could change the world."

"You know what I do respect, Ken?" He pushed himself away towards the exit. "Pizza and beer." He began walking away, inviting Ken to follow with his finger.

Ken smiled. "I have respect for beer." He said to himself quietly as he got up and began to follow.

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Being the mathematician he was, the game of pool was something that even Ken could enjoy. So he found himself shooting a game at the local pub by himself inbetween swigs of beer and bites of pizza.

"Hey Ken, who's winning?" Hansen asked as he walked up to the table. Ken had just broken, scattering the balls all across the table. Ken's mind flew back to his doctorate at this statement, but was soon back on the matter at hand.

"Hey Ken." Sol said quietly as he came up behind him.

"How's it going?" Bender threw in.

Ken was about to position himself to take another shot, when Hansen grabbed his shoulder. "Hey, Ken." He motioned over towards the bar. One of the students was sitting next to an attractive brunette, who had a blonde friend sitting by her. The blonde was eyeing Ken, and the student was motioning towards her with his head while looking at Ken.

"How about it, Ken? Come back a man?" Bender elbowed him in the chest lightly as he put down the chalk block. Ken had become quite transfixed by the woman's beauty.

Hansen slapped him on the shoulder. "Go on. Bombs away."

Ken set the pool stick down on the table and looked at Hansen disdainfully. "While I understand your need for entertainment, I must warn you my odds of success go up every time I try." He took off in a beeline for the blonde as the student and brunette walked away.

"I only wish I had my video recorder." Sol stated as they all turned their focus on the two.

Ken sat down next to the blonde, and opened his mouth. Apperantly, about to say something, but he never got around to actually saying it. He stopped, looking around nervously, unsure of what to say or do. He settled for sitting there, smiling stupidly, and looking at her.

She had been all smiles when he came over, but slowly the awkwardness of this meeting threw her off. The strange thing was, it didn't even look like Ken was trying to formulate something to say, as if this was perfectly normal.

After a silence that could have taken hours, but was only around 20 seconds, the blonde decided to help him out. "Maybe you want to buy me a drink?"

Ken glanced around nervously, then leaned in close to her. "I don't know what it is I'm supposed to say in order for you to have intercourse with me, but could we assume that I had...said it already?" Nobody who was watching would forget the look on the blonde's face so long as they lived. "I mean, we're talking fluid exchange, right? I mean, do you think we could just go right to the sex?"

The blonde smiled. "That was sweet." For a second, Ken thought his strategy had finally paid off, but a vicious slap on his cheek sent him back to reality. She pushed herself off her bar stool and stomped off.

He could hear the laughter behind him. He himself couldn't help but smile at his own ignorance.

"Charming, Ken, really charming." Charles said, walking up next to him. "The fluid exchange part was really nice."

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"Ken, there's something we need to talk about-"

"Yes, professor?" Ken caught up to the short bearded man as he walked briskly through the campus.

"We're going through some mid-year reviews, to decide which placement applications to support, and-"

"Wheeler, sir, Wheeler is my first choice and...and I really don't have a second choice." Ken immediately explained.

"Ken, it's not that simple." He motioned out behind him at other students walking about. "These people have written papers, gone to classes...Ken, they've done something."

Ken glanced off into the sky. "I know, I'm still looking. My-my original idea. I'm trying to look back to the-"

"Governing dynamics, I know. You've told me. And Ken, it's a nice idea, but so far all you have is

just that. A nice idea, and that won't get you anywhere." He walked up to a door leading inside the actual school and stepped in, apperantly ending the conversation. But Ken wasn't ready to walk away, and followed him.

"Sir, sir!" He chased after him. "M-my theories are beginning to show some real promise." The man stopped to take his coat off and place it on a hangar before entering a dining room, allowing Ken to catch up to him. "The bargaining stratagems are...all I'm asking for is another meeting with-"

"Ken." The elderly man pointed into the dining room at another rather old gentleman. He was sitting at one of the tables, and several others were presenting him with pens and kind words. Ken took a few steps towards the scene and began watching intently. "You see what they're doing in there?"

"Well-"

"The pens are a symbol. A symbol of being congradulated for an achievement. The achievement of a lifetime."

"Recognition." Ken mumbled.

"No, Ken. No. Accomplishment." More pens were placed in a neat row in front of the old man. Professor Max according to those giving him the kind words.

"There's no difference." Ken said quietly.

He sighed. "Look, Ken...you need to focus in on something. And frankly, at this point, you don't qualify for any placement at all." On that note, he turned and walked into the room, leaving Ken to

mull on this disturbing thought.

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The next several weeks did nothing to alleviate his newfound worries. He spent days staring at his drawing on the windows of his room and the library, his notes, and anything else pertaining to what he hoped could bring him to a truly original idea. But he was having no luck.

Febuary 26th, he finally began to snap. He moved from pane to pane on the window in his room, trying to find some higher truth in his markings, but nothing was coming together. He ended up bashing his head into one of the panes, shattering it and creating a bloody wound on his forehead. He reached up to it in pain, mumbling something about failure.

"No...no, I can't fail." He said to himself rapidly. "I...I can't..." He looked at the desk detestfully.

"Ken, what are you doing?" Charles demanded as he walked into the room and set his eyes on Ken's bloody forehead.

"Charles, I can't see it. If I fail at this, I'll never...I'll never-"

"Look, Ken, you need...you need a break, come on-"

"No!" He grabbed the desk and began to spin it back towards it's original place against the wall. "I can't, I've got to get something done, can't just keep...rambling."

"What now?"

"Face the wall, follow their rules, read their books, go to their classes..." He spouted in a hurried voice as he began to push the desk over to the other side of the room.

"Ken, what are you doing?!" Charles stepped in front of the desk and began pushing back. "Don't mess around, Ken! You want to do damage, just do it! Go on, bust your head!" He ran around the desk and grabbed Ken. "Go on, kill yourself!" He started pushing him back towards the window. Ken tried to push back, but Charles wouldn't have it. "Come on! Bust that big worthless head wide open!"

Ken wasn't a particularly strong man, but he managed to catch Charles off guard enough to push him off of him. "Dammit Charles, what the hell is your problem?!" He demanded, breathing heavily, as Charles fell to the ground.

Charles pointed a finger up at him. "It's not my problem...or yours." He motioned outside the window towards the campus. "Theirs. It's their problem. And...and-" he pointed back at the wall across the room. "Facing the wall, that won't help you. Your answer is out there." He pointed back outside. He pushed himself back up, winked, and placed his hands on the desk.

Before Ken could react, Charles had pushed the desk up to the window and was beginning to flip it over. Before Ken could get over to him, he had pushed the desk through the window, leaving it to fall four stories to the ground. Ken arrived just in time to see it shatter into several dozen hunks of wood. The papers on and in it scattered about in the snow below. A few students walking by were, as you could imagine, quite shocked by the sight.

Ken couldn't bring himself to get mad, or even care, about it right now. He and Charles merely gazed down on the destroyed desk.

"That was heavy." Charles panted. Ken turned to him and gave a quick nod and smile. "You know, I reckon...that Isaac Newton fellow was on to something."

"Yeah, clever boy." He began to crack up. And in turn, Charles did as well. "Don't worry, I'll come down and get it!" Ken yelled at the passing students before they collapsed onto the ground in a heap, laughing their heads off.

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Charles might have ruined Ken's desk and scattered months of work to the winds, but his advice was indeed worth more than all that. His answer did lay outside. And once he began to brodden his views, it took him almost a matter of weeks.

Ironically enough, it came to him one evening at the local bar, with his peers sitting beside him. Ken was still enraptured by his notes and drawings, but his companions had just noticed a series of attractive woman enter the bar.

"Oh my. Incoming." He heard Sol say quietly. "Ken, you might want to stop."

"Check it out." Bender seconded. Ken looked up as four fellow students took seats next to him.

"I will not buy everyone beer." Ken said simply before resuming writing again.

"No, Ken. Look." Ken's eyes fell on the group of women.

"Oh." Ken said stupidly, putting his pen down.

"You think she'll want a large wedding?" Bender joked, motioning towards the blonde of the bunch, the obvious prize. Though nothing had been said, it was clear all five men were targetting this one.

"How shall we handle this?" The one named Nielsen asked. "Rock Paper Scissors tournament, pistols at dawn?"

Hansen cleared his throat. "Let us follow the lesson of Adam Smith, the master of modern economics."

"In competition, individual ambition serves the common good." Sol muttered. "Yes."

"Every man for himself." Nielsen agreed.

Bender nodded. "And to the four who lose can get her friends over there."

Ken felt the furious fire of an idea ignite inside his head. He began to formulate it, sensing he had found something.

"Well you bunch can start thinking about that. I'm not losing." Hansen insisted.

"Wait...hold it." Sol suddenly said. "She's looking...looking at Ken."

Hansen slowly turned to Ken. "Don't worry, just wait until he tries to say something."

"Yeah, remember the last time? I'll never forget it."

Ken had his eyes transfixed on the blonde, even as he formulated his idea completely in his head. He smiled and glanced around. "Adam Smith needs revision." He said quietly.

The entire table of men turned to him as if he had just said something very offensive. "What?" Hansen interjected.

"Think about it, gentlemen." He took a deep breath. "Let's say all five of us go for the blonde. We'll block each other. And in the end, none of us will get her. We'll then go for her friends, but they'll turn us down, as nobody likes to be second choice." Ken slowly nodded. "Here's what we have to do. Nobody goes for the blonde. We all go after one of her friends. We don't get in each others way, and we don't insult any of them. It's the only way we all get laid."

He could hear the mixed laughter from the group, but could almost sense the provoking idea settle in on the brains of the men.

"Don't you get it? Adam Smith said the best result comes if everyone in the group does what's best for himself."

"Right."

"He didn't finish it. That's not all, there's more. You see, the best result comes from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself AND the group." He could barely contain himself. He had his original idea.

"Ken, you can go to hell, anyone can see this is some half-assed way to get the blonde on your own-"

"No, gentlemen. Adam Smith was wrong." He gathered his papers and quickly made his way towards the door of the bar. He passed the blonde on the way, who looked thrilled that he had decided to answer the unspoken call, but ended up extremely confused as Ken passed by with a seemingly out of place 'thank you' before leaving.

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Ken immediately left for his room and spent several days on writing a very complicated and detailed set of notes. To a person of average intelligence, this set of letters, numbers, symbols, and drawings would have made no sense, but he was laying the groundwork for a revolutionary new idea in economics. Hundreds of years ago, Adam West had declared that the best result would come if everyone did what was best for himself personally. Ken was going against that, and he loved it. This was just what he was looking for.

Some days later, he presented his papers to Professor Harrison. Nervously, Ken sat across from him, wringing his hands, as he flipped through the stack of complicated notes. Charles paced in the waiting room outside his office, watching and waiting.

"Ken...this goes against almost 200 years of economic theory."

"I'm well aware, sir."

"Don't you think that's...well, a little-"

Ken nodded excitedly. Harrison began flipping through the notes again.

After a few more seconds, he stopped. "Well, Mr. Ichijouji. This is quite the breakthrough. You wanted placement in...Wheeler, wasn't it?"

Ken gave a slight nod, trying to contain his urge to break into a frenzy at this wonderful news.

"They'll want you to recommend two team members." Ken glanced outside and saw Charles jumping about, whispering 'yes!', very happy for Ken.

"Sol and Bender, sir." Ken answered Harrison as he turned his head back to him.

"Might I suggest...Stills and Frank? Sol and Bender are both extraordinary mathematicians, they'll probably have plans of their own."

Ken just smiled. "Sol and Bender, sir."

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As Ken knew, Sol and Bender were more than happy to accept the invite to Wheeler. In fact, they were so thrilled, they insisted they spend that night drinking at the bar, toasting to Ken's genius.

"Cheers, gentlemen! We've made it!" Sol yelled. He and Bender hugged, and then each hugged Ken, as they received glasses of wine from the waitress.

"Oh...um-" Bender motioned up behind Ken, who pivoted around to find a rather depressed and defeated looking Martin Hansen standing just behind him. He walked up behind Ken, nodded slowly, gave a faint smile, and raised up his own glass of wine.

"Governing dynamics." He said quietly, with surprisingly little viciousness. And they began talking amongst each other, all traces of rivalry destroyed in that awkward moment.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Wheeler Labs

U.S. Pentagon

2015

As you might imagine, Ken's extraordinary discovery made him an instant success in the field. From his workplace at Wheeler labs, he had access to all the funds he could ever need to continue to pursue mathematical breakthroughs. And so he did. He was obsessed with numbers, and every waking moment of the day seemed to involve them.

Five years after Princeton, on this particular day, Ken was called to the Pentagon to look over a series of numbers for some sort of code. Upon arrival in the top secret facility, he was met by a general.

"Dr. Ichijouji, come with me." He said before heading off down a hallway. Ken followed closely. After a couple of twists and turns, they found themselves in a large room filled with computers and people to work them. But more importantly, a massive screen against one of the walls was present as well, which currently displayed a series of thousands of numbers.

"For all the millions we pour into them, the computers can't detect any kind of pattern." The general explained as he pointed up at the screen. "It's code, I'm sure of it. Intercepted from Russia."

"I see." Ken said quietly, looking around. "What makes you so sure?"

"I just...know it. You ever just know something, Dr. Ichijouji?"

"Constantly." He began to fixate his gaze on the numbers.

"Now, we have a couple of theories we'd like you to-"

Ken held up his index finger at the general, the universal gesture for being quiet, as his mind went to work.

_"2-3-4-7-9-4-9-0-"_ This was his domain. Among these numbers, he was a god, capable of doing something few other humans could. The white haired, elderly general watched him silently move his head around from screen to screen for some time, but after realizing this could take awhile, shrugged and left. Several others proved to be a devoted audience, watching him with great interest for many hours.

He could never understand Ken's gift. Though he was an all around mathematical genius, he may very well be the best in the world when it came to seeing patterns. Everyone else saw a random display of numbers, but Ken saw a logical design in it. And he was putting it together into a language of it's own.

He isolated common segments of numbers, and equated them to be common words, like 'the' or 'and', then scrolled through paragraphs of numbers, searching for the letter combinations that equaled 't' 'h' or 'e' and see if that made any sense. If it did, he kept poking. Inevitably, he'd run into a wall and tear down everything he had done and start over again, with some new base.

After awhile, he fell back on looking for shapes traced by number sequences, and trying to draw something from those. He was coming up blank. But he had never met a code he couldn't break, and he would spend days in front of this screen if need be.

But he didn't need days. He just needed about four hours. Finally, he had it. He found a repeating set of numbers in a 3x2 box several times throughout the numbers, then another...and another.

He walked up to the screen, thinking. Maybe it had nothing to do with letters after all.

Slowly, he turned to one of the workers, which drew a great amount of attention from everyone in the room.

"I need a map."

--------------------------------------------------------

And so he got one. As soon as it was laid out in front of him and the general was called to attention, he began placing small blocks on the map.

"I found what appear to be several sets of latitudes and longitudes in the numbers." He placed several blocks to indicate which ones. "Maine...Minnesota...there are at least ten others. I think they're routing orders into the U.S."

"Amazing." The general summed up in a single word. "We need to act on this. Thank you for your time, Dr. Ichijouji. You've done your country a great service."

"What are the Russian's moving?" He glanced up across the room near the ceiling, and saw a man in a bowler hat glaring at him through a window. "And who's that?"

"Rogers, escort Ichijouji to the unrestricted area." He heard the general say before walking away. Ken licked his lips, but he understood the confidentiality they had to show. He followed Rogers out of the room.

But the man behind the window wouldn't leave his mind for some time.

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Back at Wheeler, Sol ran up to him as soon as he walked through the front doors. "How'd it go?"

Ken continued to walk down the hallway as Sol fell into step beside him. "Classified. Adjective. Confidential or secret. Have they taken this word out of the dictionaries at Wheeler? Or do you keep asking just to annoy me?"

"I'll catch you sleeping one day."

They walked into Ken's office, where Bender sat on the desk, shuffling through some papers in his lap. "Oh, hey."

"Two trips to the pentagon in four years." Ken said under his breath, but the other two could hear him regardless. "Amazing."

"Come on Ken, two more than we've had."

"Oh, Ken, you're next assignment came in." Bender pointed at a stack of papers.

Ken glanced at it before rolling his eyes and ripping his jacket off in disgust. "We're in a nuclear age. An age of rebuilding in the middle east. An age of a world on the bring of another world war. And here I am working on stress tests on a dam."

Sol and Bender looked at each other before resuming their conversation. "Come on, Ken, look. You're on the cover of Fortune again." He threw him an issue of the magazine.

Ken glanced at it before throwing it back. "They told me it was going to be just me." He grunted. "First, they rob of the Fields Medal. Now, they put me on the cover of a magazine alongside...scholars of trivia."

"Ken, what's the difference between these guys and you anyway?"

"Alot." Ken said simply before picking up a piece of chalk and going up to one of his many chalkboards.

"Ten minutes, Ken." Bender reminded him. Though Ken could not remember why.

"For the last time, I have no interest in participating in your horror movie summer run-"

"No, Ken. Your new class." Ken turned towards Bender just in time to catch a heavy textbook. He glanced at it.

"Um..." he glanced at the chalkboard. "Well actually, I've got a temperature, maybe I-"

"No, Ken. Come on, you know the drill. We get this facilities, M.I.T. gets geniuses like us to teach their students."

Ken was about to say something, but Sol ended the conversation by grabbing him at the shoulder and turning him around so he was facing the door. Ken couldn't see a way out of this, so he blankly marched out of his office.

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2:34. First day of school and someone was already late. And it wasn't a student, but the teacher. Ken hurried down the corridor, thinking that the students must be quite surprised that such a thing could possibly happen, before coming to the correct room. He looked down at himself. Though there wasn't much option in this weather, his ideal teaching wardrobe was not a plain white t-shirt. He could very well have been a wannabe bodybuilder. But now was not the time to think of that.

He burst into the room, and every head in the room turned to him. Teenagers, students, all of them geniuses as far as they were concerned. Ken looked from face to face slowly, pondering a first impression to give.

"The eager young minds of tomorrow." He settled on. But then, a loud jackhammer filled the room with it's sounds. Ken discovered the source of the disturbance, an open window across the room with a construction crew right outside, and quickly stepped across the room to close it.

"But, professor, it's really hot if all the windows are-"

"Your comfort comes second to my ability to hear my own voice." He said coldly as he stepped up to the front desk. He leafed through the first few chapters of the book before snorting in disgust and throwing it into the wastebasket. "Now, I'm not going to lie. I am supremely confident that this class will be a waste of your, and what is infinite worse, my time." He began to write an extremely complicated equation on the chalkboard as he talked. "But I am contractually obliged to be here, and teach. And that I shall do. But that is all I will do. Attend class, or don't, if you'd rather not. Complete your assignments if you'd like. Pay attention if the mood so strikes you."

He had finished the equation when he heard the window being slid open and the jackhammers picking back up again. He turned around and saw one of the students sliding it open and sticking his...wait, her head out the window. "Miss, I-"

But she apperantly was ignoring him, for she next began to yell down at the workers on the sidewalk. "Excuse me!" After a moment, she got their attention. "We have a problem. If we leave the windows open, we can't hear the teacher, but if we close the window, it gets really hot. Could you...work someplace else, or something for 45 minutes?"

Ken was almost too affronted to say anything at first, but to his great shock, he heard yells of agreement come up from the street. Then the sounds of them packing up to go elsewhere. The woman turned to face Ken, the smart look of victory on her face. Ken immediately understood why the workers had complied. She was absolutely beautiful. Ken needed a moment to recover from the initial shock.

"As we mathematicians well know, sometimes there's more than one solution for a problem." He managed before spinning back around. "Now, this problem on the chalkboard. Some of you will take months to solve it." The woman went around the room, opening every window. "For others, it will take you the term of your natural lives."

Maybe this class wouldn't be all bad.

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Ken left the labs late that night, suitcase in hand, planning to go home uneventfully.

But it wasn't to be so. He stepped down the short stairs to ground level and began to walk away, but an unfamiliar voice called him from the entrance doors.

"Dr. Ichijouji." He spun around and saw none other than the man in the bowler hat who had spied him at the Pentagon from above. "Good evening." He slowly approached him. "William Parcher." He flashed a badge from the DoD.

"Well, Mr. Parcher, what can I do for the Department of Defense?"

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They began to stroll around the grounds, as Parcher explained the situation.

"I saw you at the pentagon. Blown away. I knew Gronyj once, he said genius sees the answer before the question."

Ken froze. "You knew Gronyj?"

He gave a short laugh. "I oversaw his project." Ken opened his mouth, but Parcher cut him off. "Yes, _the_ project."

"Mm. Well, you ended the war in Iraq."

"Sure, easy for you to say. Biological warfare isn't pretty, we destroyed 50,000 people within 20 seconds."

"A great deed that came at a great cost."

"Conviction is a luxury of those on the sidelines, Mr. Ichijouji." Ken nodded, and they continued to walk. "So, Ken, your family...close friends...tell me about them?"

"Left them all in Japan. I don't...don't keep in touch with them particularly well."

"Why is that?"

"Oh, you might call me a bit of a lone wolf. Well, really, people don't like me very much. It's not like my family just threw me out or anything, but...there's a reason I came to America."

"I see. Well Ken, your lack of personal connection just so happens to be a big advantage in what I'm about to propose to you." Ken looked up and realized Parcher was leading Ken into a secure area of Wheeler, somewhere where he was told not to go upon arriving.

"Parcher, I-"

"It's okay, they know me." He led them past the gate, and sure enough, the security allowed them both to pass.

"They told us these warehouses were abandoned." Ken explained as the pair walked toward a series of warehouses ahead.

"Not exactly."

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And the warehouse was anything but abandoned. Men in suits walked about massive computer systems, working on various projects that appeared to be important. Very important. Massive screens hung on the wall, thick concrete walls indicated the utmost security, and radio's crackled with all sorts of activity.

After allowing Ken a quick peek around, he was taken into what appeared to be an office. Parcher's office. They sat down, and the real conversation began.

"As of this moment, Ken, your security clearance has jumped to top secret. You are not to discuss what is discussed in here with anyone else. If you disclose any secure information, you will be imprisoned."

Ken nodded. He felt at home, like this was he was born to do. What he had always wanted to do.

"Alright. After we cleared out Iraq, we discovered this facility." He pointed at a screen on the wall, which now displayed said facility. "From what we can gather, they were trying to construct a atomic weapon. Something special. They were trying to make a small one. Possibly the size of a matchbox. The Russian's beat us to the facility and got the data."

Ken licked his lips. "The pentagon. Those routing orders, were they for these?"

Parcher nodded. "A faction of their army's gone rogue. Novaya Svobga is what they call themselves, and they appear to have control of such a bomb. They want to detonate it in the United States, kill as many people as possible."

"And where do I come in?"

"This group has agents hidden in the U.S. They communicate to them through codes imbedded in newspapers and magazines. You, Ken, would have to be the best natural codebreaker I've ever seen."

Ken smiled. "I'll do anything I can to help this country."

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Parcher handed him a list. "Commit this list to memory." It was a list of names of magazines and newspapers. "Buy each new issue of these periodicals, find hidden codes within them, and decipher them."

Ken quickly memorized the list. "Understood."

"Good. Come here." Parcher motioned to him from next to a strange looking device. Ken stepped up to it. "Put your arm, palm up, through this. He motioned through a hole in the device. Ken obliged. "Look at the dot of light here." Ken did so, and in the next second felt a sharp pain in his arm.

He pulled it out quickly, and grabbed it. Small cut along the arm. "It's a radium diode." A special light was flashed over his arm, and a series of numbers appeared from inside his arm. "It decays predictably, so the numbers there will change over time. Those numbers will be the code for your dropoff point."

Ken touched it carefully. "So...I...I suppose I'm a spy now?" He smiled slowly. Now this was living.

Parcher smiled back. "Here's the address of the dropoff point and details. Memorize it."

Ken did so, and was then escorted out of the warehouse, to begin the first day of the rest of his life.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Alicia

How odd it would look to anyone else. Ken's office was not at all what you would expect from a genius like Ken. It may as well have been a hormone-crazed teenager's bedroom, who was confused about his or hers sexuality with a penchant for college basketball, motorcycles, and animals with long necks. But this was Ken's job now. He was obsessed with it. It occupied every second of his life he could spare. Now he was doing something important and relevant, and he was not about to let such a job slip away.

A grown man drawing shapes, lines, and diagrams on newspapers and magazines, finding patterns nobody else could find, would usually land a person a friendless life, if not a cell in some asylum somewhere. In Ken's case, however, it was considerably different.

One afternoon, he was flipping through a issue of Vogue, circling the 4th letter in every 5th word, A styrofoam cup hanging out of his mouth as his teeth remained clamped on the lip for no particular reason, when the telltale tap of someone knocking at the door sounded.

"Come." He yelled out through the cup, not taking his eyes off his work. The door opened, and a stationed guard swept into the room, accompanied by one of Ken's students. The girl who had the audacity to defy him in opening the windows on the first day, so it turned out.

"Wow." She said, looking around at the walls and desk, both covered with magazine articles. "You have some...interesting tastes, professor."

For all the world, Ken looked like a dog who had been caught in the act of raiding a garbage can. Slowly, he pulled the cup out of his mouth. What he wouldn't give for a switch under his desk that would immediately cover up the walls with some bland, uninteresting wallpaper at this moment. He could feel his face go crimson as he attempted to place a magazine barrier inbetween himself and...who was she again...Alice? Yes, it was Alice.

He came back into the real world just as Alice...wait, maybe Alison...sat down in the chair oppisite him. He also realized the magazine he was holding up as a shield was a particularly leather-heavy edition of Maxim. Slowly, he put it back down onto the desk and did his best to keep the red out of his cheeks. Achieving only the opposite effect, naturally.

He gestured to the guard to leave, and he complied, leaving the two alone. "What is all this anyway?" She was clearly stifling the urge to laugh.

Ken licked his lips slowly before giving perhaps the most popular word in all of Wheeler. "Classified."

She nodded slowly. "Alright." She smiled. "We've been waiting for half an hour you know."

"Hmm?" Ken already knew what she meant, but would never admit it.

"You missed class. You know? Class?"

"Well, I seriously doubt anyone missed me." He said dismissively, about to go back to his work.

"The problem you left on the board that first day..." A piece of paper slipped itself over Ken's magazine. "...I solved it."

As soon as she made this daring claim, Ken's head swiveled up to face hers. "No, you didn't."

"You didn't even look." She pouted.

"I don't recall saying the vector fields were rational functions." He looked back down at it for a moment. "Good solution, but in this case, incorrect." He handed the paper back to...actually, it was Alba...that was her name...awkwardly stroked his cheek, and then reached down into his desk to pull out further magazines in an attempt to end the conversation.

She got up from the chair, looking partially defeated, but didn't move any further from this spot. After a moment of attempting to discover some hidden code within the edition of Seventeen, he had to look up. He gave a very fake smile. "You're still here."

"I'm still here." Ken wasn't quite sure what to say, so he sat there rather stupidly, praying she had the next move in mind. "Professor Ichijouji...I'm wondering if I could ask you out to dinner." Ken sucked in his cheeks slowly, then pushing them back out. He looked quickly to his left and right, as if expected a devil and angel to appear on either shoulder to offer him guidance. "I mean, you do eat, right?"

He began to rub his fist against his forehead, back and forth. "Occasionally, yes, I mean, generally I eat alone, get those small single tables right next to the kitchen, and usually I don't eat out at all, I stay home, I really enjoy those meals that come in one container and you just put it in the microwave and..." he suddenly remembered what had just been asked. "Leave your address with my office, I'll pick you up Friday at 8:00." He ducked back down towards the magazine, and she slowly left. "See you then-..." His brain froze, he couldn't decide on a name to address her by.

"Alicia." She giggled and walked through the doorway as Ken slammed his palm into his forehead.

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Two days later, the friday Ken spoke of was here. Ken had been invited to an upscale party of sorts at the Governor's Mansion friday night, and took Alicia with him. Perhaps not exactly what she had in mind, but adequate.

Ken strolled over to the Governor in the lobby, Alicia holding his hand and walking behind him. "Governor, I'd like to present Miss Alicia Larde." He presented his arm candy to the politician, who introduced himself to her.

A photographer ran up to the group as Alicia pulled away. "You and the Governor, please?" He asked, holding the camera up. Ken and the Governor took spots next to each other, posing for the cameraman. He was about to take a shot when Alicia intervened.

"Hold on." She went up to Ken and made a practically unnoticable adjustment on it. "First big date, I'll want a copy of this photo, has to look good. Which isn't a state you find yourself in altogether naturally, professor." She pulled out a napkin, folded it, and put it into his front pocket so a small section of it was visible.

"Very good." The governor commented just before the photograph was taken.

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Alicia wandered through the hallways, fascinated by the many elaborate paintings on the walls. She was quite intrigued by art, and was muttering on about details Ken didn't understand nor care to understand. He was focused on another kind of beauty. Who would have ever thought he could land someone like Alicia and keep her for more than fifteen seconds? She looked even more fantastic tonight, in the black slender dress, her hair back in a tight bun, and the full lips even fuller thanks to lipstick. Ken glanced down the hallway and saw two of his old classmates from Princeton, who looked quite surprised at the attractive nature of the woman Ken would take to a party like this.

"I'll bet God's a painter." Alicia said, bringing Ken back down into reality. "Look at all the colors there are in the world."

"You're a painter, are you?" Ken said slowly, keeping an eye on the two ex-classmates as they walked away, one again touching his fist to his forehead awkwardly.

"Yes, I am." She looked at Ken, who was glaring at the ex-classmates, and put her hand up to his cheek and pushed his face towards hers. "Me? Your date? Right here?"

Ken smiled awkwardly. "I'm still trying to master the nuances of human interaction and social comportment. Forgive me."

"Alright. I'll be outside." She began to slowly stroll down the hallway towards the backyard. Ken began to move the other way, towards the champagne table.

After retrieving two glasses, he headed out onto the back balcony and found her. He presented her with one of them. "Thank you."

"Thank you for this." He pulled out and offered the napkin back to her.

"Keep it. I believe in deciding things will be good luck."

"Really?" Ken glanced around then leaned in. "I don't believe in luck." He looked the napkin over. "However, assigning value to things...there's something I believe in." He pocketed in the napkin.

She slowly turned her head up to the skies, looking into the night, at the many thousands of stars. "Four thousand three hundred forty eight."

"Mmm?"

"I tried to count all the stars once. That's how far I got."

"You are exceptionally odd." He said slowly, almost lovingly. "Here we are...a pair of odd ducks." He stepped close to her. "Pick a shape."

"What?"

"Pick a shape."

"...a jellyfish."

Ken walked up behind her, then began scanning the night sky. After a moment, he grabbed her hand, pointed his hand up towards the stars, and began tracing a jellyfish with the stars. The end result couldn't have been much more perfect, more accurate then most modern constellations.

"...amazing." She said quietly. "An octopus, then."

Ken once again looked up towards the heavens, and after a moment, traced it. And then an umbrella. Then a trout. And any other shape she could mention, for the rest of the night.

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Even at his home, his work dominated all else. His living room had neatly stacked newspaper articles all around the floor, arranged around a small area from which he could stand and read everything as he spun about. He was in his pajamas, unable to sleep, trying to decipher something out of The New York Daily at 2 A.M at this very moment, in fact. He slowly spun around, crouched to examine something, got back up, rubbed his forehead, and repeated in a painstaking, borderline insane process.

And then, he had something. A set of letters from one article jumped out at him, glowing inside his mind. He began to draw parallels, going from article to article, trying to get things to match and line up. Using a ruler, he neatly ripped relevant strips of paper from several magazines and papers, he circled the letters which made up the code he believed he had just found. Painstakingly, after perhaps 3 hours of hard work, he thought he had something. 27 different magazines and newspapers came together to form some extremely complex code involving something about a terrible weapon trying to be used in the U.S. So it seemed, in any case.

He began drawing on a map, pointing out geographical locations brought up in the articles, as well as details about what might be done at the various locations. Finally, a breakthrough. How thrilled they would be at Wheeler!

After gathering everything together and filing it so it would make sense to someone else, he shoved it into a folder, poured a bit of hot wax on the envelope's tongue, and sealed it with a seal bearing his family's coat of arms. He stamped it with a classified stamp, marking the end of his first section of work.

He headed towards his bedroom, but after some hard thought, decided he still couldn't sleep. Mulling on what to do, he convinced himself to make the drop now. Quickly, he slipped into his coat and trotted out to his car, folder of top secret information in hand.

The droppoint was twenty minutes away, a fairly easy drive. He hadn't been there yet, but it seemed pretty self-explanatory. Every few minutes, he would begin to go onto the shoulder or go into the wrong lane, losing focus out of excitement and worry. Fortunately, he made it without a casuality and no harm done.

A massive, wrought-iron gate stood before the house that was his drop point, preventing anyone from entering without clearance. Ken walked over to the number pad to the right of the secure door and placed his forearm under metal box which held it.

A small ultraviolet light beamed down from below the box, revealing the small, red, digital numbers imbedded inside his forearm. 247284. He punched the digits in, and the gates swung open slowly.

He walked through, trying to appear casual, even if he suspected the only witness to his actions was the night. He walked over to the large mailbox and slid the folder into it, slamming the hatch a little harder than was needed.

A light came on in a room in the house, and a shadow of someone appeared in the window. Ken couldn't tell if he had been spotted, if it mattered, or if the person was merely stretching, but he didn't feel comfortable. Then, a dog's bark shook his confidence further. Automatically, he began to briskly walk towards the gates, then noticed they were closing automatically. He sprinted for them, just squeezing through as they shut, once again securing the house from outside intruders.

Happy to be alive, he got into the car and began speeding back towards home, wondering if it was at all possible to get someone else to make drops in the future.

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But now, there was another side to his life. Alicia and Ken, as they quickly discovered, were made for each other. Beautiful, odd, intelligent people. They saw each other more and more often, and Ken wasn't even daunted by the oddities of dating his student. Mere weeks after the initial meeting, the interchange Ken had been waiting for occured.

Ken and Alicia were sitting by a pond, watching wildlife go about their lives, a nice picnic set up beneath them. Alicia wore a wonderful summer dress, Ken a blue buttoned shirt and khaki pants. A fantastic looking couple that nobody would understand.

"Ken, you should talk more."

"I...I can't talk to you about my work. You know that."

"I don't care about work."

Ken pondered this for a moment as he watched two squirrels chase each other around. "I doubt you'd want to hear anything else I'd have to say. For better or worse, I'm a rather direct person. Usually for the worse in social situations."

"Try me."

He looked around, hoping that some form of help would spring out of the ground or decend from the skies, but no such luck. "Alright." He took a deep breath, looked about once more, then turned his focus to her. "I find you attractive. I believe you feel the same way based on your moves towards me. Tradition requires we go through the process of several dates, exchange of personal information, and other such activities before we have sex. Though I am following through with those activities, all I really want is to have intercourse with you."

He waited for the hammer to fall. It took about three seconds, but it wasn't the hammer he expected. Alicia moved in to kiss him deeply, and Ken returned the favor. After 5 seconds, they pulled away.

"Was that one of the 'for better' ones?" She asked quietly before they continued. And on that grassy knoll, by the pond, with all forms of wildlife watching, Ken _really_ became a man.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Peak and Fall

Deliberately, Ken wrote his diagrams in green pencil on a newspaper. He didn't often work in public, outside the security of his office or home, but every now and then it paid to work outside for awhile.

"What are you doing?" A small voice asked. He looked up to find a small girl standing before him. She might have been 6 or 7, wearing a black, crisscross patterned coat, a red and black shirt, and a grey miniskirt.

"I'm attempting to isolate patterned reoccurances within periodicals over time. You?"

"You talk funny Mr. Ichijouji." She observed.

This drew his attention, as he was quite sure he didn't know this girl. "Have we met?"

"No, but my uncle says you're very smart, but not very nice, so I shouldn't pay no mind if you're mean to me."

"And this uncle is who?" He leaned in closer to her.

"And the prodigal roommate returns!" Came a familiar british accent from behind the girl. Charles had finally gotten around to paying him a visit. Ken looked around her at him, his face lighting up at the sight of his ex-roommate. He got up from the stone bench on where he sat, and they embraced each other. After all, it had been so many years.

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They went on a walk around the grounds of Wheeler, the girl running about, chasing wildlife.

"Not too far, Marcee!" Charles yelled in her direction.

"So...how has it been with you?"

"My...my sister...she died in a car crash. She's mine now." He gestured towards Marcee.

"That's a shame." An awkward pause followed. "Well, I mean the part about your sister...of-of course."

"Yes. Husband was too drunk to know he was too drunk to drive, so it happens."

Ken was watching her run about the birds on the grass. "She's...so small."

"Yes, Ken, that's how they start out you know." They shared a laugh, continuing down the sidewalk. "Anyway, I'm at Harvard now. Author's workshop. D.H. Lawrence."

"Charles, I'll give you 30 bucks if you'll just buy a new book already and move on from D.H. Lawrence."

"I have many books, Ken, but none so as interesting as those written by Lawrence." They walked over to a bench and sat down. "I've been reading alot about you, actually."

"Yes, I'd imagine so. I'm...I'm liking life here, I've been given a truly important assignment in recent months. And well...I can't say any more, you'll understand?"

"Top secret, huh?"

"Yes...yes and...well..." Ken faltered, not quite sure how to deliver this.

"Come on. Out with it."

"I met a girl."

Charles, if he was just mocking Ken, was doing a excellent job of acting. "You don't mean...a HUMAN girl, do you?"

"Homo Sapien. Bipedal. And get this, she finds me attractive on many different levels."

"Well that's just wonderful, isn't it?" Charles slapped Ken on the back. "No accounting for taste I suppose."

Suddenly, Ken turned to Charles, very serious. "Should I marry her, Charles? I have enough money, the job is steady, it adds up. But I'm not sure, how do you know for sure?"

"Ken, there's only one sure thing I know." He looked over at Marcee. "Nothing's ever sure."

Ken was afraid of that answer. Slowly, he nodded, mulling on things once again.

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Ken pushed the door to the upscale yet quaint restaurant open hurriedly, frantically looking about, hoping a time machine would materialize on one of the table. Failing in that hope, he hurried down a row of tables.

Sure enough, near the end, a beautiful, yet disappointed looking Alicia sat at one of the small tables. She looked like she could somehow lash out at anyone who made her mad in that red strapped dress with chinese patterns across it. Ken really wished he could be somewhere else right now.

Nevertheless, he went up to her. "Alicia...p-please don't be angry. I lost track of time at work, you know how it is up there. I'm sorry."

"Mm-hmm."

Ken glanced about, again hoping that he could spot something that could alleviate this situation in the restaurant. Nothing. Slowly, he reached into his back pocket for a last ditch attempt to save the evening.

"I'm sorry, I didn't have time to wrap it." He pulled out a glass diamond-shaped object and set it next to her. "Happy birthday."

No reaction, she was still angry. So he continued. "You see, the refractive faces of the glass create a full wavelength dispersal," he held it up to show her "if you look inside you'll see-"

"Every possible color." She finished quietly.

"Yes, every possible color. Remember when you said god must be a painter, because of all of the colors-"

"You were listening?"

"I'm always listening, Alicia." He kneeled down next to her.

She finally turned to really look at it. "It's beautiful." She finally smiled, and Ken knew he was out of the red. He stood up and straightened his tie. Then, on second thought, he knelt back down.

"Alicia, this relationship, I have to know...does it warrant some commitment? Long-term? I have to know. I need some proof, empirical data if you will."

Alicia looked him over. "Err..." she giggled. "I'm sorry, let me think..." she threw her head back in thought. "This isn't exactly the kind of romance I envisioned when I was young, but...proof...how big is the universe?"

"Infinite, of course."

"How do you know that?"

"Because all the data collected in that area indicates it."

"But it hasn't been proven yet, has it?"

"Well, no but-"

"Then how do you know for sure?"

"I don't, I just believe it." Ken started to see where this was going.

"There you go. It's the same with love I suppose." Ken slowly nodded. "Of course, now...what you don't know...do I want to marry you?"

Ken nodded, this time like one of those yesman bobbleheads. This was going well.

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Weeks later, it was set. It was a small ceremony at a local church. In fact, the two dozen in attendance all came from Alicia's side of the family. Ken had invited only Sol and Bender, no family, no Charles. It was Ken's decision, and everyone respected it, but this was the biggest day of his life, and to at least have a mother or father there to witness it seemed appropriate. When asked by Alicia, Ken cited an inability to travel and Charles having to teach, and stuck to it no matter how many times he was asked.

But that slight oddity did little to dim what was a fantastic ceremony. The two dozen who were there were all thrilled that Alicia had managed to find a man who was essentially the male counterpart to her own persona.

Alicia in her bride's dress and Ken in his Tux, they strolled down across the street towards the decorated car, those around them throwing rice up into the air. A few took pictures. They shook some hands and made some hugs before entering the car, Ken sliding into the driver seat and Alicia the passenger seat of the black buick.

Amongst the compliments and wishing of luck, Ken peered down the street and saw a familiar sight. A jet black, ominous ford, from which his bowler hat bearing boss, William Parcher, was spying on him. He could see the disdain in his eyes even from this distance, hidden behind a poor veil of trying to look happy for Ken's success. Of course he well knew, without asking, Parcher would be against this. Forming a relationship with another human being was contrary to what Parcher wanted from him. He hadn't interfered, or even objected to it, but he clearly disliked it.

But that was a concern for another time. Ken drove off down the street, from which the people were clearing out of, towards home. There was no time for a honeymoon, thanks to Ken's extremely important work, something that Alicia took surprisingly well.

But from the moment Ken and William stared each other down, right after the wedding was over, Ken's life peaked and began to go into a nosedive.

-------------------------------------------------

Reading the numbers displayed on his forearm, Ken fiercely punched the corresponding numbers into the pad. The gate clicked and slid open, giving Ken access to his droppoint. He hurried through the opening and ran up to the mailbox. He never liked doing this, and he had been doing it for so long now, but tonight felt especially odd. Something would happen, he knew it.

He crossed the lawn over to the box and shoved it in, then hurriedly darted back through the gate before it shut. As he was about to leave, the jet black ford sped down the street and pulled to a halt right before him.

"Get in, hurry." Parcher said simply. Ken complied automatically, half prepared for something like this. "They're following us." As soon as the door shut, Parcher slammed the gas pedal down and sent the car forward.

Ken dared to turn around and watch as another black car came into view behind them, clearly in a hurry to keep up with them. "Who are they?" He demanded. He wasn't someone who was able to handle these kinds of situations.

"The drop's been compromised." Then, a gutshot, and the back window shattered. Ken ducked down behind the seat, feeling his head for a bullethole. "Stay down!" Parcher warned. He swerved the car to avoid another coming down the street, knocking it onto the sidewalk, and then knocked a bus stop sign over. Ken felt on the brink of hyperventilating.

Parcher was a good driver, swerving through intersections without losing speed and recognizing when to go around or just go through, but those in pursuit were able to keep up for several blocks.

"Parcher, make it stop." Ken mumbled, in his distressed state disregarding that Parcher was doing everything he could to make it stop. More gunfire from behind. What remained of the back window was torn asunder by it's force. Another hit the radio on the dash.

Parcher took a pistol out of his jacket pocket and presented it to Ken. "Go!"

"No."

"Ken, you have to-"

"I'm not shooting anyone!"

"Take the goddamn gun!"

"NO!" Ken ducked down further, almost onto the floor.

"Dammit, Ken-" Parcher blindly stuck the gun backwards towards the car and began shooting off. Even though it was on his side, Ken winced at every sound of the gun firing. After five shots, Ken heard the car behind them swerve. He looked up to see two bullet holes perforated into the windshield, and the passenger dead.

They swerved through a back alley, the car bumping up and down fiercely thanks to the uneven ground, but the car continued, the driver still more than capable of giving chase. He began to pull up next to them. Ken crotched into the leg space below his seat as it came up parallel to their car.

"Stay down!" Parcher instructed as he pointed the gun out the passenger side window and shot wildly. Ken covered his face and whimpered at every sound of the gun going off. He heard an anguished scream after a second, signalling the driver had been hurt or killed.

Then Parcher slammed on the brake, while the other car continued to roll. Ken dared to peek over the dashboard, and saw the docks just ahead of them. The car, both passengers either dead or hurt, had nothing to stop it from cruising right into the water and sinking, a resonating splash signalling it's departure from familiar territory.

Parcher ran ahead to investigate, but Ken stayed frozen in his seat, trying to delete the previous 10 minutes from his brain before it became forever imprinted.

------------------------------------------------

Half an hour later, Ken was taken, by Parcher back home. He crept up the walkway as if he was breaking into the house, then had to try three different keys with his shaking hands to get the front door open. Then, upon closing it sharply, he jumped and ducked, expecting a bullet to careen into the room.

"Ken? What happened?" Alicia's voice called. Ken looked around his living room, normally a beautiful house in the symmetric style he had always wanted, but now everything seemed like something that wanted to kill him. "Where were you? Sol said you left the office hours ago."

"Well-...well you see..." he trailed off, not sure where to go.

"You alright, Ken?" Alicia appeared from the bedroom and walked up to him, looking at him hard.

Ken gave a sort of wild-eyed nod before solemnly marching towards the bedroom. Upon entering it, he slammed the door and locked it before Alicia could consider stopping him.

She went up to the door and pressed herself against it. "Baby, please, talk to me. What happened?"

Ken had slowly slunk to the ground, back to the door, on the other side, oblivious to his wife's calls, head in his hands.

"Dammit, Ken! Open the door!" She began to pound on it, producing no desired result. "Talk to me! Open the door!"


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Paranoia

Ken violently spread the blinds open with one hand and peered harshly down two stories to the parking lot below Wheeler labs. The fourth time in as many minutes. Every time he heard a car, he was sure it was the Russians coming to get him.

To his great displeasure, he saw what appeared two black fords park next to each other...much like the one William Parcher drove...and the one that the Russians had during the chase three days ago. His heart skipped a beat as a man in a bowler hat stepped from the driver side of the car. He didn't care much to see either russians or Parcher at this time. He was in over his head.

However, the other doors of the car slid open and women and children piled out onto the asphalt. The other car soon opened to reveal a similar set of passengers. Just a family here to investigate Wheeler labs. Nothing more.

Slowly, he turned back to face the room, which had some very confused and agitated students waiting at desks for class to 'really' begin. Ken was no great teacher, but this was just intolerable.

Ken gave a wild eyed look, like he wore so often now, at all the students, daring one of them to say something. When nothing happened, he grabbed his suitcase and hurried out the door, the slamming shut of it sparking whispers among the young adults. Ken had done strange things, but never had he let a class out 46 minutes early.

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Hours later, Ken slowly turned his office door on it's hinges and peeked outside. The usual pair of guards, nothing more, nothing less. As if stealing something, he shuffled outside and turned to lock the door. Just as he was about to shove the correct key into the hole on the knob, a voice nearly made him go into cardiac arrest.

"Ken?" He turned around and was instantly greeted by William Parcher. Where the hell did he come from? "You alright?"

"No, William, I am not alright. I can't handle this. Every car I see holds Russians who want nothing more to silence me, every slamming door is a gunshot trying to burrow into my skull, it's-" It flooded out fast. Ken didn't know how much he wanted to say all this to...someone.

"Ken." Parcher put his hand up, palm out. "I understand." He twisted the knob to Ken's office and pushed against the door, opening it up. "Go on." They slowly walked inside the secure room.

"William, I'm afraid that-"

"Ken, you need to calm down. We're almost there, I can taste it, that bomb is almost ours! And it's all because of you! Thousands of lives will be saved by your work, isn't your paranoia a worthwhile tradeoff for that?"

Ken glanced around, looking for a backdoor out, but as always, there was nothing but the truth. "Things have changed, William." He had never addressed Parcher by his first name so often as he was now. "Alicia's pregnant. I can't stick my neck out like this anymore."

Parcher looked around, taking the news in. "I told you on day one attachments were dangerous. It was your decision to marry her, I didn't even suggest you shouldn't." He pushed his jacket back on his shoulder slightly, revealing his gun holster, perhaps accidentally, but perhaps not. "Now, I'm going to have to ask you to continue your work. It's the only option at this point."

Ken didn't much care for the way this was going. He took a deep breath. "Well, I'll just quit."

William didn't falter. "No you won't."

"What makes you so sure?" Ken was slowly approaching Parcher without even knowing.

"I'm the one who keeps the Russians from knowing you specifically work for us. It works both ways; you quit working for me, I quit working for you." After an awkward beat, he turned and exited through the door, shutting it on his way out.

It took that long for Ken to build up a reaction. He ran towards the door and threw it open, running into the hallway, just catching Parcher's back disappearing through the exit.

"Parcher!" No response or reaction. The exit door shut. "Parcher!" Nothing at all. Ken was left to formulate what he might be able to do, and inevitably come back to zero.

"Hey Ken, what's going on?" Sol appeared from a side door in the hallway. Ken gave him the wild eye look, then peered at the exit door, then hunched over and shuffled back into his office. "Ken, what's up?" But the door had already shut, signalling an end to any start of a conversation.

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Late that night, Ken sat awake in his bedroom, completely dark sans for an open window which allowed a small bit of illumination in thanks to some streetlights and headlights of passing cars. He was staring down a black ford across the street, feeling quite certain that either the D.O.D. was keeping a close eye on him or the Russians had discovered his location. Either way, he couldn't hope to sleep so long as it was there, and had been up all night glaring at it.

It wasn't doing anything at the moment, but he saw the shadow of a man in the driver seat, who looked as if he might just be wearing a bowler hat. Or perhaps he had an oddly shaped head. He knew the car had been there for a long time, well past the point of simple coincidence.

The bedroom door opened to grant Alicia access. "Ken, what's going on?"

Ken's head swiveled to her quickly. "Turn off the light!" He hissed. He jumped up and ran over to her, pushing her out of the way to turn off the light in the living room, bringing the bedroom to darkness once again. "Alicia, why did you do that?" He asked, genuinely bewildered why someone would do such a thing as bring light into a dark room. "Why would you turn the light on?"

"Well-"

"You know what, nevermind, it's not important, you have to-"

"What is wrong with you?" She was on the verge of crying.

"Alicia, you have to go stay with your sister." He ran back into the bedroom, pulled out a large suitcase, and began shoving various things of Alicia's into it. "I left the car in the back, take Commonwealth, stay where there are alot of people-"

"Ken! Dammit, Ken, I'm not going anywhere!"

Ken turned quickly to face her. "STOP! Stop it!" His expressions suddenly relaxed to desparation. "You don't understand, I can't tell you right now...but you have to go." With that, he slowly turned around and made his way back into the bedroom, leaving Alicia to stand there.

He went back to the window, peering out at the cars, one of which was now opening to allow a man to exit.

Black suit, bowler hat...it wasn't Parcher, but could very well have been someone in the D.O.D. There was more than enough evidence for him, in any case, to stay up all night watching, ready to react the moment anything funny happened.

Little to his knowledge, outside the room, Alicia had no intention of leaving. She slowly glanced at the phone, and with a guilty conscience, walked towards it, grabbed it, and dialed the number she had committed to memory since Ken had come home in such a terrible state a few days ago.

-------------------------------------------------

The lack of sleep, however, would not put Ken off from traveling to Harvard the next day to give a presentation. This was his life, his job, and he wouldn't give it up for anything. Including paranoia. Thusly, hunched over with eyes darting all the way, he made the trip to Harvard University via plane, drawing many curious looks, serving only to further his fears.

It was a nice day, externally, though Ken didn't notice, nor would he have cared, as he made the trip up the steps towards the facility. But his attention was grabbed by a voice calling out, in the small voice of a child, "Uncle Ken!" He turned his head to the right, catching sight of Marcee running towards him from the side. Charles sat on a bench right behind her, watching, newspaper in hand. Excited to see people that presented no threat to him for once, he dropped his suitcase and bent down to embrace the small girl in a big hug.

"What are you two doing here?!" He asked. "Oh, baby girl!" He added, picking her up.

"Someone needed a hug alright." He went up and gave one of his own to Ken. "I saw you were speaking here today, thought I'd drop in."

"Well, that's great...great..." He trailed off, remembering his world of misery. "Charles, I need help...I've...I've gotten into something, I need help."

Charles nodded and put his hand on Ken's shoulder. "Whatever it is, Ken, go ahead, tell me."

Ken was about to indulge Charles in his forbidden secret, but then a woman's voice. "Professor!" Ken's head swiveled. Several people were gathered around the entrance to the facility, waving to him. "Professor Ichijouji, welcome!" They motioned for him to come.

Ken turned his head back to Charles. "After. We'll-meet after, I'll tell you everything."

"Okay then." Charles replied. Ken nodded shortly and turned to leave.

----------------------------------------

Hundreds of pairs of eyes were upon him, watching him look around from behind the podium, giving his presentation about mathematics. He didn't mind being in this crowd so much, no harm could befall him here. Maybe that's what convinced him to come, even he couldn't delude himself to believe that all these people were Russians or from the D.O.D.

"So...so...ummm...as you can see, the zeroes, of...the Reimann Zeta function correspond to pl-singularities...that...are in space-time." He turned and began writing on the chalkboard behind him, describing what he was talking about further. This wasn't one of his better speeches. "Yes, in space-time...conventional number theory...will break down in the face of relativistic exploration."

An old man in a gray suit with two tall men wearing black entered from the back. He felt his knees nearly buckle, but he managed to keep composed. He glanced at Charles, who followed Ken's lead to look back at the men. Ken looked back to find them circling around the audience.

He looked around at the audience, who were beginning to fidget and threaten to leave the uninspiring presentation.

"Sometimes our expectations..." he began to slowly walk off the stage, "can be betrayed by the numbers." The man in the gray suit was watching him, now heading down the aisle. "Variables...Variables are impossible to assign any rational value." Every aisle had a man walking down it now, towards him. There were other men standing at the doors to the facility, defending it from any sort of escape attempt from him. There was only one way out.

Casually, he turned around and walked briskly to the exit door behind him, opening it partially. Murmurs broke out. Surely that short, pathetic, triteful bit wasn't all he had planned. Then he ripped the door all the way open and went into a dead sprint through it. The men in suits retreated, circling around the facility, forming a perimeter, trying to catch Ken, trap him.

Outside, Ken jumped down a long flight of stairs, turned a corner around the building, and began running as fast as he could ever remember running. A suited man emerged from a door in front of him, so he cut to the right down the path he came from. "Ichijouji! Professor!" He heard the man call as he gave pursuit.

He cut across the grass field towards the outer areas of the campus, catching attention from many wandering students who took surprisingly little interest.

He ran into the archway, and began the descent down the steps, only to have another suited man step into view at the bottom. "Hold it, Professor!" He shouted. Wide eyed in fear, he turned, to find he was indeed trapped on this set of stairs.

The older, less menacing of the men approached him from the top of the stairs. "Professor Ichijouji. These are hard working children here at Harvard, let's not disturb them with a scene. What say you?" He began to approach him.

Ken wasn't ready to lay down yet. "What do you want?"

"My name is Rosen. Dr. Rosen. A Psychiatrist."

"Fascinating story." He looked about, hoping that some new escape route would have materialized in the last few seconds. Nothing of the sort. "You should write fiction books."

"Ken, I'd like to have a chat with you. I want you to come with us." He walked right up to him.

"Well-it appears I...have no choice." The two men began to close in on him, and just then he lashed out at Rosen, catching him on the cheek. He turned and ran down the steps, jumping over the railing near the bottom to dodge Rosen's guard.

He made a right turn, the man right behind him, only to run right into another. The two grabbed him and wrestled him down to the concrete.

"Help! Someone!" He kicked out at a third who approached, but he caught the leg and pushed it down, pinning him completely. "Somebody!" He managed to look up enough to see several students, watching curiously, but taking no action to help. "Goddammit, get off me! I know who you are!" He yelled as Rosen approached him with a needle. "Don't!" He looked back at the crowd and saw Charles pick up Marcee, who had attempted to run over in assistance. "Charles! They're Russians! Russians! Help!" Charles responded by picking Marcee up, hugging her tightly, and looking at Ken out of the corner of his eye.

"Steady the leg." Rosen asked one of his men as he prepared the needle.

"Stay the hell away from me!" He demanded. But a minute later he felt the needle puncture his skin, and after a few seconds, it all turned to black. The last thing he saw was Charles, just standing there with Marcee, not doing anything at all.

-------------------------------------------------

He had no idea how much later it was he woke up. But when he did he was in a wheelchair, shackled down, in a elaborate office. He saw the persian rug, then heard someone calling his name. _"Ken. Ken."_ He tried to get up with a start, only to find he couldn't get up. He was in his pajamas, still feeling drowsy. Rosen stood before him. Slowly he looked up. "Take it easy, Ken. It won't wear off for awhile. Sorry about the restraints." He motioned towards them as Ken struggled with them. He felt a bit of drool hanging off his lip and reached up to wipe it. "You've got quite a right hook."

"Where-..."

"MacArthur Psychiatric Hospital."

"Cut the crap." He managed to groan. "I have nothing to do with the military, you have the wrong man. I don't know anything."

"You probably don't." He turned and went over to his desk. On this, Ken jumped out of the chair and tried to run, only to fall over and be reduced to trying to crawl across the floor towards the door. Calmly, Rosen hit a button on his desk.

Ken, however, had his focus fall on something else. Charles was sitting in the corner, looking depressed and defeated. "Charles?" He stopped moving. "Oh god, I didn't mean to get you involved in this. I'm...so sorry." He just kept looking at him, hunched over, his face hard and sorrowful. "Charles?" His head suddenly bowed over. It hit Ken like a ton of bricks. "...the...the prodigal roommate revealed." Charles looked back up at him helplessly. "Saw I was speaking today, eh?" He began to get that crazed expression he was developing more and more often. "You lying son of a bitch!"

"Ken. Listen to me." Rosen was standing over him. "Who are you talking to?"

"How do you say Charles Herman in Russian?"

"Ken, there's no one there." He looked in the corner of the room where Ken was looking. "No one's there." The door burst open and men in white came in to pick Ken up and prevent him from causing further harm to himself just then.

"He's right there! In the corner!" They began to drag him out of the room. "Goddammit, I don't know anything!" They dragged him out into the hall. "My name is Ken Ichijouji! I'm being held against my will!" The hall was filled with people, wearing the suits indicating doctors, nurses, and mental patients, none of whom took any notice of Ken's yells. "Someone call the D.O.D.!"

-----------------------------------------------------

He was taken to a very small room, completely white, a white bed the only thing within it, which he took to sitting on as soon as he was placed inside of it. His mind raced with possibilities of escape, all of which were thrown out as soon as they entered. He didn't even notice Rosen and Alicia peering at him through the window in the door.

"Dr. Rosen, what's wrong with him?"

"Your husband...has schizophrenia. Paranoia comes with this disability."

"That...that's impossible. His work-he deals in conspiracies."

"Oh yes, I know. In Ken's world, these behaviors are...accepted." He began to slowly stroll down the hallway. Alicia followed. "Encouraged, really. This illness may have been affecting him, going untreated, for a very, very long time." Alicia quickly wiped away some tears, trying to put on a brave face.

"How long are we talking?"

"Since graduate school, perhaps. That's when the hallucinations began."

"What hallucinations? What are you talking about?"

"I know of one so far. He has an imaginary roommate by the name of Charles Herman."

Alicia broke out into a smile. This had to be a joke. "Charles...isn't imaginary, he's been Ken's best friend for years."

"I know. Have you ever met Charles personally?"

She thought for a moment. "Well...no, but-"

"Was he even at your wedding?"

"He had to teach, he's very busy."

"You ever see a picture of him, talk to him on the phone even-"

"This is ridiculous." They stopped walking, coming to face each other.

"I phone Princeton. Ken lived alone when he attended. Now miss Ichijouji, what's more likely? Either your husband is a government spy, fleeing the Russians, nevermind he's a mathematician with no military experience-"

"Doctor, you're...you're making him sound crazy."

"...or that he has lost his grip on reality?"

She glared at him helplessly, not yet sure what to think.

"I can help him...I can show him what's real. Come on." They began walking again. "What can you tell me about his work?"

"Nothing, he couldn't talk about it."

"He has this supervisor by the name of William Parcher, so he claims anyway. I'd like to talk to him, but to get to him I'll need your help. I need you to find the details about your husband's work."

"Doctor, I don't know if I-"

"Miss, Ken thinks I'm a Russian spy. Is that what you think?"

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"Alicia, this is highly irregular, I don't think-what's wrong with Ken?" Bender pestered Alicia as they ran up the stairs to Wheeler's main facility.

"He's sick or something?" Sol followed up from Alicia's other side. She looked so...different in this pure black outfit, even a trenchcoat to top it off. They'd rather not have to confront her on anything.

"I'm not sure, I need to see his work." She said briskly.

"Oh, Alicia, you know that's not allowed, it's classi-" Bender insisted, trying to grab her. She turned and powerfully slapped him across the face, knocking him backwards, almost sending him reeling down the stairs. She turned back around and headed up the steps, neither Sol or Bender daring to stop her.

Just down the hallway, they entered the office of Ken. Alicia had been here many years before. Today, it was somewhat similar to how it was then...just a massive extension. Every wall was paved in magazine and newspaper articles, tacks and strings connecting some to others, forming a multicolored web all around the room. The floors and desk was also covered with marked papers as well. It was clear he had been doing this for years, this pointless, insane, ridiculous work.

"Oh-Oh my god." She exclaimed as Sol and Bender came in. "Why didn't you two say something." She dared to ask, moving about the room, looking the papers over.

"Well, it's just-he's always been a little weird Alicia. You know him." Sol answered.

"Yeah, he said he was breaking codes, we couldn't be in on it."

"Top secret, part of the military-"

"Was it? Was he?" She interjected.

Sol looked about the room. "I mean, it's possible, you know, maybe we didn't know about it..."

Bender stopped him. "Highly unlikely, I'm afraid." He approached her. "He been more and more agitated lately-"

"This is all he's been doing? Every day for-"

Bender sighed. "Well...ummm...not all."

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Miles later, Alicia exited her car, in front of the address Bender had given her. He had followed Ken one night, and witnessed him make a 'drop' at this location. Of what, for what purpose, he wasn't sure, but Alicia was here to find out.

It was a rundown place, an abandoned, ruined mansion, every window boarded up, with a twisted iron gate protecting the entrance, the lock destroyed. There was a number pad to the right of it, but the mechanisms had been ripped out of the back.

She entered, pushing the gate open, eye catching a mailbox by the front door. She ran up to it, fearing the worst, and cracked it open.

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Dejectedly, she sat in the visitor room of MacArthur Hospital, knowing the meaning of what she had found. The door opened, and she looked up to see Ken being escorted by two of the nurses into the room. Ken saw her, a mix of emotions fighting to take his face over. He slowly shuffled towards her, and she got up and went to him, thusly they met in the middle.

They hugged, she on the verge of crying, he just happy to see her in the middle of all this.

"I'm...I'm so sorry." She choked out. They pulled away and put their faces together.

"It's okay. It's okay." Ken breathed. They sat down at the table.

"Now, Alicia, I do realize my recent...b-behavior and my inability to talk to you must have appeared insane." He was talking extremely quietly, so as nobody else could hear them. "You didn't have any other choice, I understand, and I'm sorry." She nodded, beginning to cry again. "It's going to be okay. We just have to talk quietly, like this. They may be listening, microphones. I'm going to tell you everything." He looked around. "You need to know, you need to get me out of here."

She almost stopped him, but couldn't quite bring herself to it. Ken didn't notice.

"I've been doing work for the government, top secret. There's a threat, could kill thousands. The Russians think my profile it too high, otherwise I'd already be dead. So they're detaining me. You have to get to Wheeler, get in contact with a William Parcher, he can help-"

"STOP!" She suddenly yelled, fighting off tears. The entire room turned to the two. Ken did indeed stop. An awkward silence, broken by Alicia. "Honey...there is no William Parcher. I've already been to Wheeler. He doesn't exist."

"Of course he does, I've been-"

"Working for him? Cracking codes? Dropping them in a mailbox in front of a mansion?"

Ken was stupified. "How-"

She stooped down and picked up her bag, putting it on the table, and dumping out the contents. Every envelope Ken had ever dropped, all yellowed with time, all still bearing the wax seal Ken had applied. "They've never been opened. It's not real." She started to cry. "You're sick, Ken. You understand, baby?"

Ken blinked, starring at them for some time, slowly getting that wild eyed look again, then suddenly got up and walked purposefully out of the guestroom, down the hallway with nurses in pursuit, towards his room.

--------------------------------------------

Minutes later, Rosen was called about a situation in Ken's room. He quickly hurried to the scene, and walked in on Ken sitting on the floor, hand on his wrist, blood everywhere.

It was obvious. Attempted suicide. Or so it seemed. But upon closer inspection, the slash was up and down the forearm, not across, and Ken had been digging around inside of his arm. Rosen ran next to Ken and looked down on the wound. "Ken, what's wrong?"

"It's gone." He said vaguely. "The implant. It's gone." The nurses began to tend to him. He just sat there, helplessly, unbelievingly. "It's...it's not there, it's just...gone."

-------------------------------------------

Hours later, Ken had come as close as he could to accepting this reality, and was willing to submit to Dr. Rosen and his treatments. He was ushered into a medical room, in the center of which stood a large bed with straps on it. Two of the nurses helped him out of his overcoat, and he slowly went to lay down on the bed.

Several men and women around him secured him to it. This scene played out as Rosen and Alicia watched from above. It was very distressing for Alicia to see her husband like this, but she had to at least know what was going to happen.

"The nightmare of this illness...is not knowing what is real." A man began to take Ken's blood pressure from the side. "Imagine learning that the people and the places and the moments most important to you...not gone...not dead...but never were at all." Ken looked up at Alicia, expressing the thought process Rosen was describing perfectly with his face. He tried to mouth something Alicia couldn't make out, then sat back on the bed. She was sure he started crying.

"We can only imagine what such a world would be like." One of the nurses injected something into Ken's arm, and slowly he fell unconscious.

In the minutes following, his body was rigged up with all sorts of medical equipment and wires and needles. He began to twitch and sweat. One of the nurses placed a mouthguard in his mouth. Another held his head steady. His entire body began to vibrate fiercely, shaking the bed, held down only by the straps.

"This, I'm afraid, is the treatment." Rosen explained as Alicia turned away and looked down at the floor.

"How often?"

"Five times a week. Ten weeks."

Once again, Alicia wiped more tears away, not sure if she was going to be able to take this. Of course, her plight wasn't nearly as bad as the one faced by the man she loved, down in that room.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Medication

A year passed. Shock treatments were replaced by simple pills twice a day. Immediately, Ken lost his job at Wheeler, though he maintained an excellent knowledge of math. Alicia had to work now, hard and long, so as their baby wasn't being brought up by his parents nearly as much as Ken and Alicia had dreamed. He was being dropped off at Alicia's sister's house, or a friend, sometimes a babysitter, whatever was possible at any given time. Their stylish, grand house was sold, replaced just miles away by a much smaller, basic house that was within their new abilities to uphold. Ken sat in this house all day, unable to do anything, as if a child again. He couldn't watch the baby, couldn't be trusted with any task that took any sort of focus or multitasking, all he did was stare at a wall, play with a children's toy, or some other menial task.

On one of her rare downtime opportunities, Alicia was taking the baby on a stroll through the Wheeler grounds. She wanted to see Sol and Bender again, it had been awhile. She ran into Sol on the grounds. They were walking beside each other, stroller pushed forward by Alicia, talking.

"So Hansen's running the department now?" She asked, sort of dead sounding.

"Yes. He won't stop reminding us, in fact."

They had a short laugh. Some humanizing emotion. It felt nice. "Ken won't come near here anymore. Ashamed, I'm sure." The baby began to cry, upon which Alicia reached down, almost robotically, and handed him a necklace of letter-blocks for chewing. "Hey...hey, want this?" He took it.

"Alicia...I'm-not sure how to say this...how are you?"

"The delusions have passed. With continued use of medication, and-"

"No, Alicia. Not Ken, I mean you. You're the one who's had to...well you know...pick up the slack and everything, I mean."

She slowly straightened up from the stroller, looking at Sol thoughtfully. "I think...I feel alot of obligation. I want to leave, leave this nightmare, but just thinking about it makes me feel guilty. I'm mad at...Ken...god...always rageful inside." She looked around, then at the baby, then back at Sol. "But sometimes, I force myself to look at Ken and see the man I married. He's transformed into someone I love. And who loves me." Sol didn't look particularly enlightened. "I know it sounds odd. I don't do it all the time or anything. Enough, you know?"

Sol nodded. "Ken's very lucky, Alicia. Very lucky man."

"And yet, so very unlucky." They continued on their walk, talking for some time.

----------------------------------------------------

"Well, this is our residence now." Alicia explained as she pulled the car into the driveway of a small, homely, yet somehow depressing. Depressing in the sense that these two people, such a lovely couple, were stuck here.

"This-this is it? Well it's nice." Sol settled on.

"It's near where I work." She looked up at the porch. "Ken, a visitor!" Through the screen door, he was seen, pen and paper in hand, wearing a plaid shirt and tie with khaki pants, as if he was still going to work every day. They walked up the pathway and went through the screen door onto the porch. "Hi. Hope it's alright." Alicia said quietly as she bent down to kiss Ken.

"Yes, quite alright." She went inside as Sol shut the door behind him. He waved awkwardly at Ken.

"Heya, chief, how's it going?"

He turned to the table and grabbed a box, turning to present it to Sol. "Cigarette?"

"Oh, no...actually I-I quit." He explained. Ken threw the box back on the table and stuck his hand out. It was sad to watch, it was so...robotical. Every movement was stiff and mechanical. Sol shook his hand leaned back into the chair behind him.

Ken suddenly pointed to the chair Sol was about to sit on. "Oh come on, Sol, that's not nice, you almost sat on Harvey! You two met?"

Sol swung around to the chair. Nothing. He laughed nervously. "Ken, there's...there's-"

"Oh, relax. No point in being nuts if you can't have a little fun." He broke out into a fit of giggles. Sol actually joined him.

"Jesus, Ken..should have figured."

Alicia came back into the porch with two pink pills and a glass of water, setting them on Ken's table. "Here you go, honey."

Ken looked down at the objects. "Oh...I can take those later."

"You're supposed to take them now." She firmly reminded him before turning to leave. "Sol, you want anything?"

"No, I'm fine." He shook his head to emphasize that. His focus turned to Ken taking the pills, slowly, with malice, once again as if a machine. "Anyway, I was in town...ya know, giving a lect-workshop. I go back tonight." He leaned in. "Ken, Bender really wanted to be here, just wanted to say hi, you know, but-..."

Ken swallowed the pills. "Squeamish?" He finished.

"...yeah, I guess."

Ken nodded, smiling. "It's okay, I would be too. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with me." He looked down on his papers. "I'm trying to solve the Reimann Hypothesis." He stuck the clipboard out at Sol. "Here, have a look."

"Oh yeah?" He grabbed it and pulled out his glasses, pushing them on and looking over Ken's work.

"Crazy or not, perhaps if I dazzle them, they'll reinstate me. You know?"

Sol looked over the papers. High school level math, perhaps, and it was very poorly done if that. He kept inputting wrong formulas, trying multiple times before getting it right, and in the end arriving at conclusions no one would care about. This work might not even get him into Rutgers as a student, much less a high position at Wheeler.

"It's hard, though. The medication. I can't...well it's hard to-" he pointed up at his head. "see the solution."

Sol took off his glasses and handed the clipboard over to Ken. "Ken, take it easy. Life isn't all about work, you know."

Ken turned his head about in all directions, as if looking for other elements of life. "What are they, then?"

------------------------------------------------------

The baby almost immediately launched into a fit of cries when Ken tried to pick him up. He held the infant as one might hold a book, with one arm, across his chest, in a most upsetting position to the child. But it would never occur to Ken to try something different. Or even to grab the pacifer on the table to try and silence the cries. He just sat there, inside, rather stupidly, starring at the floor.

After a minute, Alicia rushed in to take the child from Ken, who seemed rather uninterested in the entire scenario. Showing only a vague knowledge of the fact that he had done something wrong, and not formulating any possible way to fix it. It was those damn pills, and he knew it.

That night, while Alicia cleaned up following dinner, Ken sat at the table, playing with a plastic rocking horse. He pushed it forward with his finger, sending it back and forth on it's curved base, then repeated. He could do this for hours these days. And usually did.

Alicia watched him. "What you thinking about?"

Ken thought hard. "What is it that people do?"

"Life. It's life. Activities. Add meaning."

Ken gave the horse a hard push, sending it fiercely back and forth.

"If you want to do something, try...leaving the house. Talking to people." She went over to the cupboard and reached up to put a couple of plates on the shelves. "Take out the garbage."

Ken looked around shiftily, nodded, and got up. He grabbed the trash can from under the sink of the kitchen and exited out the back door to take it to the curb.

A moment later, Alicia heard voices from the curb.

"Good to see you, been awhile-" she couldn't make out any more. It was Ken and...possibly someone else. She couldn't tell. But naturally, feared the worst.

Ken came back in with the empty can a second later, replacing it under the sink. She had to ask. "Who was that? You were talking to someone?"

"Garbageman." He responded simply.

She took a deep breath, ran her hands down her face, and looked out the window. "Garbagemen don't come at night, Ken." She pointed out the window at the darkness.

Ken looked up at her as he got up from the cupboard under the sink. "Well, I guess around here they do." He insisted. At that moment, a green, foul-looking truck came into view through the window, driving down the street. Alicia ran up to the window and peered out at it. The massive claw at the side of it reached out at every house, grabbing the trash cans on the curb of every house on it's way. It was indeed a garbage truck.

Alicia looked at Ken. She couldn't tell if he was hurt or just wearing his usual expression. He looked down at the floor, then started to giggle. Alicia couldn't help but join in.

"Sorry, Ken. Sorry."

-------------------------------------------------------

That night, Ken lay wide awake, starring up at the ceiling. Alicia was awake herself as well, wondering if he'd go to sleep. When he didn't, though she feared she was wasting her time, she felt she may as well try.

She moved her body so she was pressed right up to him. Nothing. She put her arm across his chest and started kissing his neck. He turned his head away. She attempted to put her hand down his pants, at which Ken pushed her away and rolled over on his side. She rolled away, sighing. Rejected, yet again.

"Is it the medication?"

He nodded, just enough so she could see the back of his head move slightly to indicate his answer. At that, she got up out of bed and left the room. She walked down the hallway and went into the bathroom. Ken perked up slightly to listen.

She got herself a glass of water, and drained almost all of it in one gulp. She sat down on the toilet, thinking. Finally, she threw the small remaining bit of water against the sink mirror, then hurled the glass against the mirror, shattering it, and releasing a blood curdling scream. She punched out the remaining shards of the mirror, screaming again, before breaking down into tears. "I-I don't know what to do..." she sobbed.

Ken heard everything, tossing about in the bed, thinking.

Maybe she didn't know what to do. But he did.

-------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, he gathered up the shards of glass and threw them away in the garbage can outside. Probably the most complex thing he had done in a year now.

As he finished up, he looked out into the street to see Alicia, about to leave for work. "I'm going to take 3 hours of overtime tonight, mom'll keep the baby a little longer." She informed him before jumping into the car and leaving.

Ken hadn't forgotten last night, nor his solution. After spending all night thinking about it, he was certain it was the only way, and he was willing to do it.

-------------------------------------------------------

As Ken read the newspaper at his desk late at night, it took him hours to do it these days, Alicia approached him with the customary glass of water and two pills. She set them on the desk beside him. He looked at them and nodded, looking up at Alicia.

"Alright, I'm going to bed." She said quietly, heading towards the stairs across the room.

Ken wanted to say something meaningful, but could only come up with "Good night."

"Good night." She repeated, disappearing upstairs. As soon as she was gone, Ken opened the left hand drawer, 2nd from the top, on his desk and grabbed a tin box. He opened it, revealing dozens of the small pink pills. He hadn't taken one for the past week. And he was already feeling better. His mind was clearer, he could really think again. He had to be careful not to be obvious, but he hadn't been this happy in a long time.

He placed the two pills in the tin, replacing it carefully, watching the stairs should Alicia come back downstairs. After the deed was done, he took a long draught from the glass.

Or it would have been long had it not been interuptted by the newspaper. Patterns again, every third word, vertial, diagonal, every two to the left and one to the right...he was seeing them again. Shapes, codes, hints, secret messages...a mere glance at this paper revealed so much instantly.

He was back in the game, for better or worse. Smiling, he grabbed a pencil and began to trace them, just for sport. Perhaps.

Then, a clatter. He peered through the blinds out the window. A man in his yard, running about. He looked to his left, and saw a shadow of a man, running away.

He sprung up and ran outside, catching a glimpse of a man wearing army fatigues hurdling the back gate into the forest behind the house.

Ken gave pursuit through the thick trees, not entirely sure why or what he'd do, but following his gut instinct.

Another man, wearing army colors, running by, sporting a machine gun. He gave chase, through thick bramble, until a ominous click stopped him in his tracks.

He turned. A flashlight was shining right on him, a soldier training a sub machine gun onto him just a few yards away.

And then there was another right next to him...another...dozens came out, surrounding him, poised to end his life with the slightest amount of pressure. Why did he have to give chase? What did he intend to do anyway? Why?

Suddenly, a familiar voice.

"It's good to see ya, Ken." Parcher! Ken spun around and came face to face with the bowler hatted supervisor once again. "Been awhile."

"Parcher?" Ken said slowly, not daring to believe it.

"In the flesh."

Ken's face took on a grimace, grounding himself back to reality. "No, dammit! You're not real!"

"Don't be a fool. I'm right here, Ken."

Ken turned and tried to run, only to encounter more armed soldiers in his path. He was trapped. Nowhere to go at all.

"Ken, it's about time you got back to work." Parcher walked up to him. "The bomb is in it's final position. Here, Ken, in the states." He began to walk further away from Ken's house. "Come on, let's take a walk."

And so they did, slowly strolling through the forest, armed men following. "We need you, Ken, this is the most important part of this operation. You're needed."

"But, I can't possibly hope to-"

"Oh, don't worry." Ken looked up and saw a ruined, small, old shack standing in the forest. Parcher went up to the door, pulled it open, and gestured for Ken to enter.

He did so, coming into a dark room where he could make nothing out. Then, lights came on, a generator whirring to life. There were computers, screens, electronics, radios, and men to operate them. Very elaborate setup given the situation. "Not bad, eh?" Parcher entered from behind him as Ken examined the room. "The bomb is on the eastern seaboard. But we need you to pinpoint it, the codes are complicated, moreso than ever." He picked up a clipboard. "Here, why don't you-"

He looked up at Ken, who was just standing there, starring at him. Suddenly, he smiled knowingly. "No. No, Doctor Rosen said-"

"That quack!" He slammed the board back onto the table. "Schizophrenia, right? Fed you the same bullshit as always! Ken, look at me. Tell me I'm imagined, do I look imaginary?"

Ken raised his head and looked him over. He had to admit, it was convincing. He licked his lips and moved in on him. "Wheeler has no records of you."

"You think we list our personnel?" He gave a small quick smile. "Look, Ken, you've been through hell and back. But I've done alot to get this set up. Now, I can give you everything. You can go back to Wheeler. I'll tell the whole world what a genius you are. But you have to help me. You understand, soldier?"

Ken nodded slowly, breaking out into a smile. "Oh man, I was so...so scared you weren't real."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: A beautiful heart

Months later, Ken was showing obvious signs of improvement, a great joy to everyone around him. He was able to do things, think clearer, help out...of course, it came at a price, but he had managed to keep it hidden from Alicia.

One April evening, a flurry of bad weather was beginning to hit as the two prepared for the child's bath. Alicia was gathering towels from the closet. "Storm coming in. I need to get the blanket from outside." She said as Ken carried the baby up the stairs. He was now doing it with both hands, one wrapped around the child's rear to make him feel secure, the other on his back, securing him to his body.

"Sure." He began up the stairs. "I'll draw his bath." He turned his head around to see, sure enough, a rather stupified looking Alicia standing at the base of the stairs. He had never done such a thing before. "It's alright." He nodded. Alicia returned it, slowly, then went outside. Ken continued up the steps towards the bathroom.

She went outside, stepping through the backyard half the size of the house, and grabbed the blanket from the banana tinged grass. And then, she heard static. It was just loud enough for her to take notice and detect it's source. In the forest behind the house. Even as the static turned to voices and the thunder rolled in, she decided to she had to investigate. She threw the blanket back down on the grass and began slowly strolling through the gateway, into the maze of trees.

The wind blew her conservative skirt left and right as her heart began to beat faster, her brain feared the worst, and her legs began to walk faster. After a moment, she came across the decrepid shack. The static was coming from this room, she was sure of it. Hesitantly, she placed her hand on the door, looking like a cloud that someone had forgotten to clean, and threw her weight into it. It creeked open.

Newspapers. Magazines. Clippings. Notes. An old radio sputtering incoherent ramblings. A crude light fixture. It was just as his old office had been over a year ago. A web of string stretched all across the room, apperantly converging on particularly relevant articles. She could only imagine the madness that a mind would have to be infected with to come up with such a set of 'codes.'

She could almost feel it in her stomach. Her baby was lying on the bottom of the tub, Ken's hand rotating the faucet's lever to allow water to pass through. His hand flew under the flow of water, testing it's temperature. Then she saw the madness in this room.

She turned, breaking into a dead sprint back into the house. Why had she ever let him do this? Draw his bath? Why not tell him to circumcize him? The bark and dirt flew up and around her as she rushed back towards her house. He had gone mad again. If he was capable of that madness, that could mean...

The tub was filling. The baby was beginning to whine. The level had gotten up close to his face. Normally by now, the flow would have been stopped and Alicia would have been right there, ready to watch over him, take care of him. But there was no one, he could feel it.

The rain began to drum down on the roof of the house fiercely, wetting everything and anything in the area. Alicia tore through the downpour, back through the backyard, blanket forgotten. She tore the door to the house open, nearly off it's hinges, she could care less at this point, and sprinted up the staircase.

The water was just about completely covering the child, who knew not how to save itself in this situation.

"Ken!" She screamed. The odds were low, he...he had been better lately, but if he thought Parcher existed again, perhaps...she ran into the bedroom.

Ken was standing by the window, doing something to the blinds. Fixing them, apperantly. Or perhaps the window, she didn't care beyond the fact he wasn't in there.

"Almost got it, Charles, watch the baby. Just one more to go." At this, she knew the baby must indeed be in a filling tub of water. She ran into the bathroom, where the water was just about to overtake the child entirely. "I'll be right there."

"Oh my god." She grabbed him, perhaps just in time, and lifted him out, even as he continued to cry about the near-death experience. She reached up and grabbed a towel from the rack, putting it around the child slowly, trying to calm it. "It's okay, it's okay."

Ken came into the bathroom at this moment, looking slightly crosseyed. "It was okay," he pointed into the corner of the bathroom "Charles was watching him."

"There's no one here!" She hissed, looking into the corner. "No one!"

"No, it's okay, he's been injected with a cloaking serum." She began to cry, and bolted past him out of the bathroom. "I can see him because..." he began to chase her "...of a chemical in my bloodstream. You see when my implant dissolved I-" He saw her head disappear downstairs, and followed her. "It was for your own protection, I can't tell you these things!" He yelled.

He came down to the sight of her dialing on the phone, baby still crying in her arms. "Alicia?" Then it hit him. "No!"

"Hello, I need Dr. Rosen, please."

"Stop her." An order from a corner of the room, by the bookshelf. "Stop her." It was Parcher, standing there with a look of superiority, commanding Ken to follow his orders. "You've gotta do it."

"No, you leave her out of this." He demanded into the corner. Alicia turned as she waited for a reply on the phone to the empty corner.

"Ken, who are you talking to?"

"It's not her fault, I-"

"Ken, what are you-"

"It has to be done, she's trying to compromise us as we speak! She knows too much! You'll go back to Rosen."

"Ken, tell me, who do you see!" She screamed.

"If you don't stop her, thousands will die!" Rosen countered. The two yelling at him clashing in his mind like a Tupac Album. He wasn't quite sure what to do, so he tried to compromise.

"Alicia, please, put the phone down! Trust me!"

No such luck. She picked up her conversation. "Hello? Yes-"

"Sorry, Ken, but this can't happen." He pulled out his gun and began striding towards Alicia as she asked for Dr. Rosen. Ken burst at him as he leveled the gun on Alicia's head.

"Stop!" He yelled as he punched the gunhand of Parcher off target. Of course, to Alicia, there was no gun, no hand, no Parcher, so all Ken did was, in fact, punch Alicia off the phone.

He turned to Parcher, then reconsidered and turned to Alicia. He tried to offer to help her up, but she just sat there, on the ground, terrified.

"Ken, you've got to do this. She's too great a risk."

"Get away from me!" Alicia spat. "Go!" She pushed herself up, crying baby in hand, and booked for the front door.

"No, Alicia, please, I didn't mean to hurt-"

She ripped the door open and ran outside, into the pouring rain, ignoring Ken's words.

"Don't let her get away, Ken. Finish her. She knows too much." Parcher ordered from behind him. Then, he felt something put pressure on his hand.

"Uncle Ken?" He looked down. The ever small, lovable Marcee, tugging on his hand.

"Take care of her you piece of shit! DO IT!" Parcher was still ringing away in his ear even as his focus turned to Marcee. "Do it, or I'll take care of you."

"Ken, please." He turned his head towards the door. Charles was now standing just inside the house, on the verge of tears. "Ken, christ, just do what he says."

In slow motion to Ken, Parcher's gun came up to bear on him. "Soldier, go do it."

He didn't budge. "Now."

"Uncle Ken?"

"Ken, please, do what he says, please!"

"Go do it!"

Ken couldn't focus on all these people at once and formulate any coherant thought, but his brain began to whir to life for the first time in awhile. The pieces were coming together.

_"Alicia and Charles never co-exist in the same interactive field. Alicia and Parcher..."_ Memories of seeing Marcee play in a field, of Rosen injecting him with a knockout serum, came back. Memories of seemingly his entire life played before his eyes amist the chaos of people yelling at him. He was trying to find something truly tangible, something he could grab, convince every fiber of his being...

...and then it hit him.

He dashed outside the moment the revelation came to him. The car had started up and had backed out of the driveway. It was beginning it's drive down the street, away from the house, when Ken dove in front of it. Nevermind the fact that it wouldn't surprise him if Alicia drove right over him at this point.

But she screamed and came to a sudden halt, just as Ken's hands fell onto the hood. A awkward silence in the pouring rain between them. Ken still looked somehow disoriented and crazy, but it was much more serious now.

"She never gets old." He finally said. After realizing she didn't know what he meant, he continued. "Marcee was six when I was in grad school, she's still six now. She can't be real. She never gets old."

-----------------------------------------------------

The next day, the storm had cleared way for a beautiful day. The sun beat down, evaporating what water was left from the day before. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Plus, Alicia had not run off after all. She had accepted Ken's words as proof he had a grip on himself. They had gone inside, and Ken agreed to submit to allowing her to call Rosen. He had come as soon as he could, to meet with the two at their house. On a wonderful afternoon, the day after the storm, they met.

Ken sat at the table, smoking, his eyes on the floor across the room. But to him, he was actually looking at Marcee playing a game of jacks. Alicia and Rosen sat by him, watching intently.

"So...you see them now? Right now?" Rosen inquired.

Ken nodded curtly. He looked up into the threshold of the door to the living room and saw Charles standing there, accusingly glaring at him.

"Ken. The treatment, the meds, they were working. Why did you stop?"

Ken took a deep breath before continuing. "It made it impossible for me to work, help with the baby, engage in-...respond to my wife." He looked down at the ashtray, then back to Rosen. "That's no better than being crazy."

"Ken, I'm sorry, but we'll need to start you on harder insulin shocks and a stronger medication-"

"No!" He slammed his fist on the table, shaking the room. An awkward silence following. Ken grunted, wishing he hadn't been so quick to a violent tendency in this tender moment. "Don't you see? I won't do it, there has to be another way."

"Ken, look...what you have, some days, you may experience no ill effects, but in the long run, over time, you are getting worse. Trust me."

"This is nothing more than a problem with no solution. That's what I've built my entire life around, solving problems."

"Ken, listen to me! This isn't math. There is no formula to change the way you see the world!"

"I was considered something of a genius once, if I think-"

Rosen waved his hand off in a gesture of tossing the idea away. "You can't reason your way out of this! It's not that kind of problem."

Ken stood up, a vein popping in his neck. "I had to listen to that all through graduate school, from everyone around me." He leaned in close to Rosen. "Every day, they said the same things you're saying. And you know what, I outdid them _all_. Now tell me, why can't I?"

"Because the problem is within your mind."

Ken shook his head. "I appriciate the concern, but...I decline. I can work this out, I just need time." He sat back down, suddenly looking around the room. "Is that the baby?"

Alicia sighed. "The baby's...at my mother's, Ken."

He looked over at Marcee, who had taken up reading a picture book, still sitting on the floor.

"Ken...without treatment, the fantasies may take over entirely."

Ken's eyes flew to Rosen, Alicia, and Marcee very quickly, unsure of how to combat this.

--------------------------------------------------------

Ken sat in his bedroom, rubbing his fingers against the napkin Alicia had given him so long ago at an upscale party to put in his pocket. The flower pattern of pink, green and yellow was still there, and it had not quite aged enough to turn yellow. He had kept it after all.

Clothes was laid out for him on the bed, suitcases, other such travel related things. All taunting him, each piece revealing the hard truth.

"You almost ready?" Alicia appeared in the doorway, looking scared and confused. "Rosen's waiting."

"I'm not going back, Alicia. I can't. If I go, I won't ever come home. I promise that."

"Rosen thought you might say that." She said very quietly, her face downcast. "He said I could sign some papers so they could..." she trailed off.

Ken glanced down at the bed. "Well, maybe you won't sign them. Maybe you'll give me some-some time to figure this out. That's all I need."

A pause. Neither quite knew what to say. Finally, Ken realized something. "But you shouldn't be here. Rosen's right about that. I'm not safe anymore, you should-"

He stopped at the expression of great internal pain on her face. "Ken, would you have...hurt me?"

He saw Marcee flash past the door behind Alicia.

"I...don't know, Alicia. I think you should let Rosen take you to your mother's. You can stay there while I sort this out."

She slowly turned, head down, slouching, and trudged down the staircase. Ken glanced off at the wall, not believing the order he had just issued. Minutes later, he heard the car drive away.

Now he really was alone. He sniffed the napkin, slowly got up, and sat back down on the bed after parting the clothes on it enough. He heard the roar of the car engine die away. Now, it was just him and himself.

But then, footsteps up the stairs. One of his illusions? He waited for whoever it was to appear. Alicia's face came up from the bottom floor, ascending up the stairs, into view.

She slowly came into the room, silent, trying to come up with something to say. She opened her mouth a few times before settling. "Rosen said to call if you try to kill me or anything." She managed.

Ken looked her over, almost smiling, but not quite. She went over to him and kneele down. "You want to know what's real?" She put her hand up onto his cheek and began to stroke it, slowly, smoothly. "This." She grabbed his other hand and put it up against her cheek. "This." Then, slowly, inch by inch, she took the hand down to her chest, and placed his hand on her heart. "This." She whispered. "Maybe what you're looking for, the part that knows reality from the dream..." she pointed at his head. "...isn't in here." She drew her hand down to his chest and placed her palm on his heart. "Maybe it's here."

Ken nodded slowly.

"Honey. I need to believe something extraordinary is possible."

He nodded again, swallowing. Then, they embraced each other in a tight hug.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: A Beautiful Mind

It had been a long time since Ken wore his brown suit with the plaid shirt and tie under. A long time since anyone had thought to run a comb through his hair. It felt...good. He forgot how good it felt to look like a genius. It went nicely with being an actual genius.

He stood on the blocks of stone that made up the pathway through the entrance into the famous school he himself had attended. People walked by him, not taking note of him in the slightest. Who cared about him? He was just another old guy standing before the immaculate arch in front of the school, holding an umbrella and suitcase. Probably just another teacher. And a particularly dim one if the archway was holding his attention so well.

Slowly, as if every step was something he had never done before, he ascended the staircase leading up through the arch into the hallowed land of the geniuses.

Ken had his time. Two months of it to the day. Two months of trying to figure this difficult situation out. Only now was he expanding his search beyond close proximity. Perhaps his answer came within the socialization among his intellectual peers, here at Princeton.

After a journey down the pathways, through the hallways, up and down stairs, passing by hundreds of students, he came to his destination. The office in which he had been officially declared a genius so many years ago by some professor. Of course, he had long since gone, perhaps dead, perhaps on the brink of such. It wasn't important now.

He stepped up to the door, feeling the aged napkin of many years back inside it, and reached up with his umbrella bearing hand to tap the glass door.

"Come." Came the voice of his once rival. Hansen had taken over here, so the rumors were indeed true. He twisted the bronze doorknob and pushed, swinging the door on it's hinges inward.

Ken stepped in and stood before Hansen right inside the door, looking over his impeccibly organized and tidy desk. Just like the rest of the office. Finally his eyes settled on Martin. "Hello, Martin." He almost whispered.

Martin, who hadn't even looked up at him yet, took occupied in some paperwork, finally acknowledge him by flicking his eyeballs to him. He immediately stopped and turned his entire focus onto Ken as soon as he realized who he was, placing the pen down with a sharp clack onto the desk and rotating the chair so his body lined with his. "J-Jesus Christ."

Ken tilted his head, looking at various spots on the floor. "No. Just Ken, my savior complex takes on a completely different form."

To his pleasure, Martin smiled as he rose from his cushioned extra large chair, pushing off the armrests. "I heard about...well you...you know and...I did try to write, I tried MacArthur's but it was too late and..." he trailed off.

Ken smiled, then looked down at the 3rd button on Martin's shirt, then began to look around the room. He walked a few steps towards the center of the room, still examining things. "Helinger's old office, isn't it?"

"Yeah, yeah it was, I stole it from him." He gave that big, warm smile again.

He glanced at the awards hanging on the wall, not stopping to acknowledge their precise nature. Only that they were awards. "Well, Martin, it seems you won after all." He admittedly, bowing his head slightly.

"No, Ken. No, they were wrong...there aren't any winners here. Ken, here, sit down." He pointed at the chair in front of his desk. Ken strolled up to at and placed himself down on it's cushioned seat.

"Great to see you, what brings you around?"

Suddenly, a british accent from out in the hall. "Ken!" Charles burst into the room, breathing heavily. He placed his hands on the threshold of the door on either side. "Ken, tell him! You've got to tell him you're a bloody genius! Your work is critical! Tell him everything! Ken, you have to-"

Ken slammed his suitcase against his knee, looked up at Charles, and motioned him to shoo with it. Then, of course, he realized there was no Charles, so he must look ridiculous at this moment. His eyes rotated to a confused Hansen, starring at the doorway. Slowly, he lowered his suitcase.

"Any chance you could ignore what I just did?"

"Sure. What are old friends for? Now what are you here for?"

"Friends, Martin? Is that what we are?"

Martin pursed his lips. "Oh, Ken, of course. Always have been."

"Well, good. You see, Alicia and I think being part of a community would be...good for me. Perhaps some interaction and attachment with real things can push away the..." he glanced up at Charles, "illusions I suffer." Charles hung his head and turned away.

He looked back at Hanson, who was yet to reply. "I don't know why I'm here, now that I am here, because now that I really think about it I am certain you will say no." He gave a short smiled before looking back down into his lap. "I just would like to hang around, so to speak."

Hansen didn't say anything for a long time, glancing about the room, thinking. Ken just looked out the window at a branch hanging from a tree just beyond the window.

"Ken...would you need an office."

Ken snapped back to the present, quite surprised, looking at Hansen. "No, I...I could work out of the library."

Slowly, Hansen smiled, and nodded.

-------------------------------------------------------------

"There was this...this guy who was trying to get into the library, and he didn't have the I.D.-"

"Read your damn memos for once in your life!" Martin roared as he bolted out of his office, down the hallway, followed by a short, italian, mustached security guard.

"Yeah, and he's trying to get in, we're trying to explain things, and then he just goes completely nuts!" He went up to a window in the hallway and pointed outside. Martin glanced outside. A large crowd had gathered in a circle around Ken, who was pacing about wildly, yelling something about 'not real'. He appeared to be talking to someone invisible, charging, then cowering, charging, then cowering.

"Shit, shit!" Martin yelled as he ran down the hallway, eyes on the staircase at the end.

"Not real, you are not real!" He heard Ken yelling as he bolted down the steps.

-----------------------------------------------------------

"Is this what you are, soldier?! Some useless ghoul?! The local madman?!" Parcher yelled, his nose just inches from Ken's, as they walked about within the circle of confused people.

Ken shoved a cigarette in his mouth roughly, glancing about. "I'm not a soldier!" He tried to run forward, away from Parcher, but he cut him off.

"You're gonna end up in a cell!" He turned back around, but Parcher followed him stride for stride, yelling in his ear. "Worthless!"

"No, there's no mission! There's no conspiracy!" He began pacing back and forth quickly again, head bowed, trying to light his cigarette and failing.

"And while you sit in some prison, drooling, the world will burn to ashes! You hear me?!"

Ken pivoted around, viciously pointing at Parcher's chest. "You are not real! Not real!"

"You're still talking to me soldier!" Parcher countered.

"I'm not a soldier!" Ken yelled, charging back on Parcher. He began gesturing about madly with his arms.

Martin rushed into the circle suddenly, grabbing Ken's arm. "Hey, buddy, it's alright." He said soothingly. "I heard what happened, I'm really sorry, calm down-"

Ken had that old crazy look again. "I'm not a soldier." He insisted.

"That's right, you're not. You're alright. Come on."

Ken pulled away from Martin, shuffling off towards the library, head down. He heard Parcher yell at his backside, still within the circle.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the great Ken Ichijouji!"

--------------------------------------------------------

"You...you should have been there." Ken murmured across the table. He and his wife sat outside on a wooden picnic table, the moon beating light down on them, artificial light flowing in from windows of their house and neighboring houses. "Everyone was just staring at me."

"Ken...stress is the trigger for the delusions. You know that."

"Yes. But on the way home, in the car, Charles was there." He glanced about, checking to see if they were still there. "You know, I'm not going to lie. I miss talking to him. I really do." He sighed, looking up at the stars. "Maybe Rosen's right. I might need to go back to the hospital."

"No." Alicia insisted, putting her hand across the table. Ken put his hand on the table on top of hers. "Maybe...try again tomorrow."

--------------------------------------------------------

And so he did. Umbrella and suitcase in hand, he marched up the steps. He glanced behind him to note that Charles and Marcee were marching directly behind him, step for step, glaring at his back.

They followed him all along the path, and through the hallways towards the classroom he had been asked to audit. Finally, Charles stepped in front of him, Marcee at his side.

"Ken, you can't ignore me forever." He hissed.

Ken looked at him, then down at the ground, then at the walls on either side. "Charles...you've been a great friend to me. The best I've ever had." He took a deep breath. "But I won't talk to you anymore." Charles looked confounded. "I can't." He bent over, before Marcee. "Same goes for you." She sniffed, her lips puffing up, tears starting to flow down her face. "Goodbye, baby girl." He kissed her on the forehead and stroked her hair. "Goodbye."

A teacher stepped out into the hallway, stopping to watch. Ken noticed him, and it occured to him that he was stroking thin air as far as he was concerned. So he pulled up and walked forward.

He stopped before the slightly incredulous teacher. "I'm here to...well I'm wondering...might I audit your course?"

He nodded shortly. "It-It's an honor, professor Ichijouji." He said inspite of himself.

Ken stepped into the classroom, then stopped right inside, glancing about from desk to desk, student to student. "Something wrong, sir?" The teacher asked.

"No, no. It's just...this will be my first class." He began slowly shuffling to the back corner of the room. "Good morning, eager young minds." He ennunciated clearly but quietly.

-------------------------------------------------------

Later that afternoon, Ken's invention of many years past, window art, had filled the library panes. Many colored pens, with Ken's hand guiding them, wrote diagrams and numbers all along the many glass squares. Over the period of many hours, students would come and watch as he muttered numbers under his breath and wrote. Others learned to ignore him, as odd as he seemed to be. And a few others found it funny. He became a bit of a miniature legend at Princeton. The window writer.

_"Hey man, check it out." He could hear behind him. "Look at this kook. Can't afford paper I suppose." Laughter. _

_"Watch, isn't that the Reimann-"_

_"Just ignore him, he's...he's got some sort of deal with Hansen, he's fine."_

_---------------------------------------------------------_

However, every day after his activities at school, before school, during school, at home...they were still there. He had to fight the urge to respond to them every day, several times, ignoring them completely.

_"It's never going to work, Ken!" Charles insisted. "You're humiliating yourself."_

_Ken turned and almost said something, but then remembered his promise, and turned back down the path and continued._

_"Pathetic!" He placed his index fingers into his ears as he walked away. "Pathetic! That's what it is! I'm ashamed of you!"_

_------------------------------------------------------_

And as time went on, and the insensitive people of the genius world began to learn of his exact predicament, he was ridiculed on a daily basis. It felt as if every day he entered the complex, someone would mock his shuffling, stuttered walk, his hunched figure, and his constant smoking.

He tolerated anything that was thrown his way.

_"Check it, here comes the retard." He would hear as he entered. "Watch." Without looking, he already knew the student was mocking his strange walk and demeanor. He heard everyone cracking up. But it rolled right off him these days._

_------------------------------------------------------_

Many years past. He lived within the community of Princeton. Revered, ridiculed, observed, and everything inbetween. The baby grew into a toddler, then a child. He took after his father, early indications showing he was a genius. He was already in the accelerated program at school.

_"Dad!" His son cried from behind him, pushing the screen door open, carrying a lunchbag, dangling from his fingers. "You've got my books."_

_Ken looked down at his hands. One held a umbrella, the other a suitcase, and indeed his child's books were tucked under his arm."_

_"Oh, right. Sorry." He handed them over. He placed it on top of his binder under his arm._

_"Thanks." He began walking down the street. Alicia started the silver car and pulled out of the driveway. Ken began the short walk to Princeton, heading the opposite direction of his son._

_"See you tonight!" Alicia called._

_---------------------------------------------------_

No matter how much he filled his brain with mathematics, no matter how many chalkboards, windows, and sheets of paper he filled, there was always something.

_Within the room, the walls made entirely of chalkboard, not a inch of green empty space anywhere thanks to Ken's complicated formulas, Ken looked about, trying to find some sense within his ramblings._

_He turned towards the open doorway. Parcher stood there, leaning against the frame, smiling slightly. Ken looked around and saw he was looking for meaningless patterns within numbers and letters. Frantically, he began to erase everything._

_----------------------------------------------------------_

Even in his 40's, they wouldn't leave.

_Heading up the steps to the Princeton facility, he glanced to his right and saw Marcee standing to the side. She spread her arms out, one hand hoping a large orange book, expecting a hug from Ken. But he continued to walk by, to her great disappointment._

_----------------------------------------------------------_

The genius was coming back. His accomplishments were beginning to win him real prestige and fame once again. He was experimenting in some very curious things, that may have looked odd to anyone else, but he could feel the energy coming back.

_He rotated the pedals of the bike around with his feet, gripping the handlebars with white knuckles, as he went around the grass in a figure eight pattern. All the while, muttering something to himself, that nobody cared to hear. After all, he must have been crazy._

----------------------------------------------------------

And then, suddenly, he was 55. Approaching official senior status. Still working at princeton, still crazy, still writing on windows. Still a genius. Now he frequently wore a beanie, his hair was graying, and wrinkles were settling in. But he was aging well for the most part, especially in mind.

One particular day, as he was working, for the first time in a very long time, a student approached. An Asian-Amerian in a diamond patterned sweater and V-neck yellow T-shirt. He looked just Ken's style.

"Sir...did you just solve Reimann?"

"What do you think?" He pointed up at the chalkboard and the window.

"That's an analog to Frobenius for noncommutative extensions." He muttered as he looked over the work.

"Indeed. But it only works sporadically. So no, but, I think I'm making progress."

"You're Ken Ichijouji, right?" He leaned in close.

Ken had almost returned to his work, but glanced back up to the inquisitive student. He nodded.

"Toby Kelly." He put his hand out for Ken. Ken put out his. They shook. "Great to meet you. I've been studying you. What you did here, as a student, that totally original idea...was fantastic."

Ken smiled, nodding. "I was young then, you know."

He bit his lower lip. "I've been developing a theory." He pulled out a stack of papers within a binder and placed them on Ken's lap. Judging that no wouldn't be taken for an answer, Ken opened it and flipped through.

Slowly, he went through the first few pages, then looked up at the young adult, saying nothing.

"You see, I think I can prove that Galois extensions are covering spaces." He began. Ken rose from the windowsill, walking towards one of the tables in the library. "I believe everything, everything is connected, and I can prove it." He said, following right behind him. "All the same subject-"

"When was the last time you ate?" Ken asked suddenly, as he took a seat on the table closest to the window.

"What?"

"You know, food." He slid down into a chair, placing the binder on the table before him. He pulled out a brown paper bag and removed a sandwich within a plastic wrap. He presented it to Toby. "My wife loves mayonnaise. I don't."

"Oh, well, thank you." He grabbed the bag and ripped the sandwich out, beginning to eat.

"Now keep explaining what you've got here." He said, intently looking the binder over.

"Well, the function is in these two categories." And so, the great minds of yesterday clashed with the great minds of the future, at that table, in the library of Princeton university.

-----------------------------------------------

Alicia nervously glanced from person to person as they walked by at the Princeton facility entrance. Ken had been good in past years about knowing when it was time to leave. So when he didn't show up at 6:00, it was somewhat nervewracking. She herself, considering everything, had aged very well herself, though things like this would produce wrinkles and gray hair in a flash. Married to the absentminded professor.

Then, abrasive footsteps countered the calm ones everyone else had, coming down the pathway. Hansen was bolting for Alicia. "Alicia! Come, quickly, you've got to see this!"

----------------------------------------------

Alicia dared a peek into the library from around the corner, afraid that Ken had set a shelf on fire or had fallen asleep. But she saw something else entirely. Ken was sitting at a table, students sitting at other chairs all around it, and they were discussing things. More precisely, Ken appeared to be teaching.

"...coming together at a speed of...say 10 miles an hour. You have a fly on the tire of bicycle B, and the fly can travel at 20 miles an hour..."

Alicia could have seen the contents of Fort Knox within the library and not been happier. Ken had been coming here every day for years, but this was the first sign of him really, really fitting into the community.

"...the fly leaves the tire of bicycle B and flies to the tire of bicycle A...and it goes back and forth until the bikes collide and the fly is squashed. This is the actual important thing, about actually focusing and comprehending the area that you're dealing with. Math is an art form without any room for error, very precise. Though people around here may say different, especially in biology."

The table shared a laugh. Alicia smiled from across the room.

"Alright, let's go back to this. I might want to steal this, write a book and get famous. It's very good, Toby, continue pursuing it-"

-----------------------------------------------

Days later, on the way to the car in the parking lot, Hansen walked alongside Ken. Compared to Hansen, Ken had aged like sugar after a rainstorm. He still looked as if he could be a graduate student here at Princeton. Luckily, it wasn't a competition anymore.

"Martin, I was considering teaching here, if that'd be alright."

Martin's eyes followed a frisbee float through the air before him before responding. "A classroom of 50 students? That's difficult for...well, anyone. And you're a terrible teacher, Ken."

Ken glanced at Martin out of the corner of his eye as he continued forward. "I'm an acquired taste. Really, I just want to...to contribute in some way."

Hansen looked up into the sky, following a cloud with his eyes. "Well, what about...them? Are...they...gone?"

Ken turned his head to the right, at a path running parallel to the one they were on. Parcher, Charles, and Marcee were walking stride for stride with them along this path, glaring at him.

"No. And they never will be I'm beginning to think. But they've given up. I've been ignoring them for so long. That's how it is with all dreams and nightmares, I think. I stopped feeding them, so they stopped, I suppose."

"But, Ken...that can't be easy for you. They still haunt you."

"They're my past, Martin. We're all haunted by our past." He slapped Hansen lightly on the back before turning to cross over the lawn to the lot. "Goodbye."

"Ken, wait." He looked him over again as he turned to face him. "I'll...talk to the department...maybe in the spring."

Ken nodded quickly, pointed his umbrella at Hansen in a gesture of thanks, and turned again to leave.

"Hey, Ken." Eternally patient, Ken turned back around to face Hansen. He had picked up a brown bag from a nearby bench, pulling a small black stone from it. "You-you scared?"

Ken looked up into a tree. Then back down at Martin, pointing his umbrella again at him. "Terrified. Mortified. Petrified. Stupefied. By you." Ken emphasized the 'you' with a poke of the umbrella tip at Hansen's direction. He approached Hansen, pointing the game board out on the bench right next to them, and shuffled over to it to take a seat. Hansen took a seat on the other side, preparing the game. "Could you call Alicia for me, you could get me in alot of trouble."

"Don't worry, I'll ring her."

-----------------------------------------------------

"See ya, professor." The student of Princeton addressed Ken on the way out of the classroom.

Yes indeed, Ken became a teacher at Princeton. For nearly twenty years now, he had taught the eager young minds of tomorrow. And done a very good job, as far as he was concerned anyway. The students seemed to take a liking to him, he had no outbursts of insanity, and was passing on knowledge to the next generation.

"See you tomorrow, professor!" Another yelled as he ran out.

"Have a nice day!"

"Yes, you as well, I'll be needing those spreadsheets tomorrow." He responded as the student ran off. He pushed from the deskchair, gathered his suitcase and umbrella, and strolled out of the classroom amist the stampede of students.

On the other side of the doorway, a man was standing aside. When Ken crossed the threshold, this man addressed him.

"Professor Ichijouji?"

Ken glanced down at him, from head to toe, then reached out into the hallway and grabbed the arm of one of the passing students.

"What?!" She shrieked. "Oh, Professor, what-"

He pointed at the man who had just addressed him. "Can you see him?"

"...yes?"

"You're sure?"

"Uh-huh..."

"Alright, run along." He released his grip, turning to the man. "Sorry, it's just...I have to be sure sometimes." They began to walk slowly down the hallway, wedging through students flowing the opposite direction. "Now, what can I do for you?"

"Sir, I am Thomas King." He introduced himself. He looked quite a bit like Ken, just shorter and slightly older. And better dressed, to be honest. "I'm here to tell you you're being considered for the noble prize."

Ken's eyebrows raised as high as they could go, up to where his hair hid part of his forehead practically. He pursed his lips, blinking. "Is that so?"

"Let's take a walk." King proceeded forward, pushing a door to the outside open at the end of the hall, beckoning Ken to join him. And so he did. They walked down the beaten concrete path, together, heading towards the conference room.

"I'm...I'm a little stunned."

"Your equilibrium has has become a cornerstone of economics in recent years, professor."

"Suddenly everyone likes that one, huh? What about...my manifold embedding?"

"Sir, hear me out. Your bargaining problem to FCC bandwitch auctions or antitrust cases has done so-"

"Antitrust cases? My, I never would have thought of that." They pushed ahead through the crowd towards an archway between two buildings just ahead. They reached it. Ken continued down the path, or rather attempted to, but Ken stopped him and pointed at a door in the side of the building.

"Come on, Ken, let's have tea." Ken recognized it as the door that he, as a student, had discussed recognition and accomplishment in so long ago. This was the tearoom for the professors. But he, himself, had never actually had tea in there.

"Oh, no, I...I prefer the library." But King pulled him gently up to the door, pushing it open, and led him in.

"It's a big day, Ken. Come on."

"Most teas are...are unsuitable for my palate. Only northern indian teas are dense enough...very dense, I enjoy the flavor...it has been many years...since I was in this room." He looked up and realized he was standing before one of the dining tables, and King had already sat down. "Well, I wonder what tea they have." Ken slowly sat down across from King.

A girl came up and poured some tea into a cup and presented it to Ken. "Oh, thank you." He had no intention of touching it, knowing it was most likely something unsuitable for his tastes. "I have..." he looked at the waitress as she walked away. "I have a son that age. Harvard. Things have changed." He looked at King. "Aren't the nominations for the nobel prize secret until it's awarded?"

"Usually, yes, but...you're a special case. This is a major award, we need to make sure-"

"Oh...I see. You afraid I'm gonna mess it up for you? Dance around naked on the podium, squawk like a chicken, things of that nature?"

Laughing, Thomas nodded.

"I see. Well...I do see things that are not there. I _am_ crazy. And am off medication. However, over time I have...learned to ignore them. It's like a diet of the mind. I don't indulge certain appetites of the mind."

Suddenly, a voice from behind Ken. "Professor?" Ken turned his head around to meet this new presence. A large suited man, holding a fancy pen. He set it before Ken on the table. "Pleasure to know you."

Another came up with a pen, setting it before you. "It is an honor, sir."

Another, and another...and another. All bearing pens and happy words. Soon, he had a dozen before him. Then another six. He remembered that day, many years ago. Accomplishment. Recognition. The line was indeed blurred, now that he was here. But it was a good blur, one he didn't mind.

He looked down at the neat row of pens, then at King. "Well...I wasn't expecting that."

-----------------------------------------------------

Massive applause greeted Ken as he stepped out from behind the curtain into the almost painful light of the stage. He walked towards the podium, taking in every second of this. The ultimate form of recognition for him.

He was in Stockholm, Sweden. At the Nobel Prize ceremony. Accepting an award. You could not beat that trifeckta. Even this very stressful enviroment couldn't set him off now. So, surrounded by people in tuxedos and dresses on all sides, the bust of Alfred Nobel behind him, he stepped up to the podium. He saw Martin and his wife in the crowd. They had finally aged somewhat, looking like the senior citizens they were. His wife, who had aged gracefully, looking old but still beautiful and human. Sol and Bender. Everyone he had ever known, it seemed, had come.

"I've always believed in numbers." He began as the applause died. "In the equations and logics that lead to reason. But after a lifetime of such pursuits, I ask, what truly is logic? Who decides reason?" He began to glance from forehead to forehead, remembering his public speaking classes. "My quest has taken me through the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back." He glanced at Alicia again. "And I have made the most important discovery of my career. The most important discovery of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logical reasons can be found." He turned his focus onto Alicia, keeping it there this time. "I'm only here tonight because of you." He addressed to her. He saw her tearing up. "You are the reason I am." He looked around at everyone within the room. "You are all my reasons. Thank you." He stepped off the podium and began strolling off the stage to massive applause. But every step was staggered slightly under the applause. He couldn't believe he was finally here.

-------------------------------------------------

Later that night, Ken waited out in the front lobby of marble for Alicia, clutching the ancient napkin of that party decades ago, looking it over. Every now and then, people came up to talk to him, introduce themselves, offer congraduations, or simply say hello.

"I'll get the car, dad." A voice from behind him. He turned to find his son standing there, his father's jacket in hand. He gave him the heavy cloth and walked off towards the outside.

"You ready to go?" Alicia asked from behind him. Ken spun on his heel slowly to come to bear with her.

"Indeed I am. Yes please." He pulled her shawl out from under his arm and draped it around her shoulders.

"Thank you, baby...thank you."

He glanced at the collection of flags next to the hallway that led to the stage, and right by them stood three familiar faces. Parcher, Charles, and Marcee. Glaring at him, not saying a word, not doing a thing. He kept his eyes on them longer than he would have liked before turning back to Alicia.

"Something wrong?" She inquired.

"No." He settled on. "Nothing at all. Come with me, young lady." He took her arm and began to lead her outside. "I have a car."

"Oh really?"

"Yes, very nice ride."

"Where's it headed?"

"Wherever you would like..."

And so, the pair went out into the darkness, to the car their son had waiting, leaving the delusions of his past stranded for the umpteenth time.

----------------------------------------------------------

A Beautiful Mind is a true story based off the live of John Forbes Nash, a mathematician who lived during the 1900's. His discoveries in the mathematical field, those discussed within this story, have impacted the world greatly. For more, read the book or watch the movie, both titled 'A Beautiful Mind.'

I hope you enjoyed my crossover fanfiction.


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